jerked his head around. Whoa. Blay and Qhuinn had struck gold. The three human women
with them were all very pretty and mostly undressed.
Qhuinn pointed to each of them. «This is Brianna, CiCi, and Liz. Girls, this is our man John. He
uses sign language to talk, so we'll translate.»
John finished off Blay's beer, feeling like a jerk as the communication barrier reared its ugly-ass
head again. He was thinking about how to word his I'm-going-to-bail speech when one of the
girls sat next to him, trapping him in the banquette.
A waitress came by and took orders, and after she left all this chatter and giggling sprang up, the
girls' high notes mixing in with Qhuinn's deep voice and Blay's shy, low laugh. John kept his
eyes down.
«God, you are so good-looking,» one of the girls said. «Are you a model?»
The conversation abruptly lagged.
Qhuinn rapped his knuckles on the table in front of John. «Yo, J. She's talking to you.»
John lifted his head in confusion, meeting his buddy's mismatched eyes. Qhuinn nodded
pointedly toward the girl next to John, then bugged out his peepers, a kind of Would you get with
the program here, my man?
John took a deep breath and glanced to his left. The girl was staring up at him with… shit,
absolute starstruck devotion.
» 'Cause you are, like, so beautiful,» she said to him.
Holy Christ, what did he do with that?
As the blood hit his face and his body tensed, he signed quickly to Qhuinn, I'm going to have
Fritz pick me up. I've got to go.
John beat feet out of the banquette, half trampling the girl who'd sat next to him. He couldn't wait
to get home.
Chapter Thirty-eight
When Jane's alarm went off at five A.M., she had to hit the snooze button. Twice. Usually she
was out of bed and in the shower before knew she was upright, like the beep-beep-beep didn't so
much wake her up as spring her out of bed like a toaster. Not today. Today she just lay against
her pillows and stared at the ceiling.
God, the dreams she'd had during the night… dreams of that ghostly lover coming and taking
her, riding her hard. She could still feel him on her, in her.
Enough, though. The more she thought of all that, the more her chest hurt, so, with a Herculean
pull, she diverted her attention to work. Which, of course, then just got her tangled up about
Manello. She couldn't believe he'd kissed her, but he had… he'd laid one right on her mouth. And
as she'd always wondered in the back of her mind what he'd be like, she hadn't pulled away. So
he'd kissed her again.
He was good, which wasn't a surprise. What was a news flash was the fact that it had felt wrong.
Like she was being unfaithful to someone.
The damn alarm went off again, and she cursed as she shut it up with her hand. Goddamn, she
was tired, even though she thought she'd gone to bed early. At least, she assumed it had been
early, though she wasn't exactly sure when Manny had left. She recalled him helping her up here
and settling her into bed, but her head was so scrambled she couldn't remember what time it had
been or how long it had taken her to fall asleep.
Whatever.
Throwing off the covers, she headed for the bathroom and started the shower. As steam boiled
up and clouded the air, she shut the bathroom door, pulled her T-shirt off, and-
Jane frowned as a feeling of wetness welled between her legs. Doing a quick count of the days,
she figured her period must be wonky-
It wasn't her period. She'd had sex.
Cold shock replaced the heat from the steam. Oh, God… what had she done. What had she
done?
Jane wheeled around, even though she had nowhere to go-only to clamp her hand over her
mouth.
Written on the mirror, revealed by the steam, were the words; I love you, Jane.
She stumbled backward until she hit the door.
Shit. She'd slept with Manny Manello. And hadn't remembered a thing.
Phury took a seat in Wrath's study, this time on the delicate pale blue wing chair by the fireplace.
His hair was still wet from the shower, and he had a cup of coffee in his hand.
He needed a blunt.
As the rest of the Brotherhood filed in, he looked at Wrath. «Mind if I light up?»
The king shook his head. «I'd consider it a public service. We could all use the contact high
today.»
God, wasn't that the truth. Everyone was off. Zsadist was twitchy over by the bookcases. Butch
was distracted by the computer on his lap. Wrath looked exhausted behind a mountain
| | |
|