no excuses for how much he wanted her. When she blew apart, his tongue went into her and he felt it all, the pulses, the way she jerked against his chin and nose, the hard grip of her hands on his head.
No reason to stop there.
With her, he had endless stamina, and he knew, as long as his scrubs stayed on him, he could keep going like this with her . . . forever.
Vishous woke up in a bed that was not his own, but it didn’t take him more than a nanosecond to know where he was: the clinic. In one of the recovery rooms.
After giving his eyes a good rub, he glanced around. The light was on in the bathroom and its door was cracked, so there was plenty to see by . . . and the first thing that stood out was the duffel bag across the way on the floor.
It was one of his. Specifically, the one he’d given Jane.
She wasn’t here, however. Not in this room, at least.
As he sat up, he felt as if he’d been in a car accident, aches and pains blooming all over his body like he was an antenna and every single radio signal in the world was channeling into his nervous system. With a groan, he shifted around so that his legs dangled off the bed—and then he had to take a little breather.
Couple of minutes later, it was a case of push and pray: He shoved his weight off the mattress and hoped—
Bingo. Legs held.
The side that had been worked on by Manello was not exactly ready to run a marathon, but as V ripped off the bandages and did some flexing, he had to be impressed. The scars from the knee surgery were almost completely healed already, nothing except a pale pink line left behind. But more importantly, what was underneath was straight-up magic: The joint felt fantastic. Even with the stiffness that remained, he could tell it was functioning perfectly.
Hip felt good as new, too.
Goddamn human surgeon was a miracle worker.
On his way to the loo, his eyes passed over that duffel bag. Memories from his morphine trip filtered back and were far clearer than the actual experience had been. God, Jane was a spectacular doctor. In the night-to-night running of life, he hadn’t so much forgotten that as not experienced it in a while. She always went the extra mile with her patients. Always. And she didn’t treat his brothers so well because they were tied to him. It had nothing to do with his ass—those people were hers in those moments. She would have treated civilians, members of the glymera . . . even humans in exactly the same way.
Inside the bathroom, he got into the shower, and man, it was crowded in the stall. As he thought about Jane and his sister, he had a terrible feeling he’d oversimplified what he’d walked in on the night before yesterday. He hadn’t stopped to consider that there was some other relationship at work between the two females. It had been all about him and his sister . . . nothing about the doctor/patient bond.
Scratch that. It had been all about him; nothing about Payne and what she wanted out of her life. Or what Jane had done or not done for her patient.
Standing with his head down and the water hitting the back of his neck, he stared at the drain between his feet.
He wasn’t good with apologies. Or talking.
But he was not a pussy, either.
Ten minutes later, he threw on a hospital johnny and limped out into the corridor for the office. If his Jane was down here, he figured she’d be asleep at the desk, given how many of the recovery beds were no doubt filled with Brothers she’d treated.
He still had no clue what to say to her about The Leathers, but he could at least give it a shot about Payne.
Except the office was empty.
Sitting down at the computer, it took him less than fifteen seconds to find his shellan. When he’d hardwired the security system for the mansion, the Pit, and this facility, he’d put cameras in every single room there was—except for the First Family’s suite. Naturally, the equipment could be disconnected easily with an unplug, and what do you know, the bedrooms of his brothers all showed black on the computer screen.
Which was a good thing. He didn’t need to see all that banging.
The blue toile guest room