Lover Unleashed (Black Dagger Brotherhood #9) - J. R. Ward Page 0,57

Butch. Do-gooder, nosy-ass, interfering son of a bitch.

Ten minutes later, he stepped out, grabbed a black towel, and stemmed-to-sterned the terry cloth as he walked into the bedroom. Popping open his closet, he willed a black candle on and . . . got an eyeful of wife-beaters. And leathers. Which was what happened to your wardrobe when you fought for a living and slept naked.

Not a turtleneck in sight.

Well, maybe the damage wasn’t so bad—

A quick pivot to the mirror on the back of the door and even he had to pause. He looked like he’d been clawed by Rhage’s beast, great stripes of angry red welts wrapping around his torso and pouring over his shoulders and his pecs. His face was a fucking joke, one eye so swollen that the lid was nearly inoperable . . . his lower lip split deep . . . his jaw looking like he was a squirrel stashing nuts.

Great. He was like one of Dana White’s boys.

After he grabbed his dirty clothes and stuffed them into the back of the closet, he stuck his swollen balloon head out in the hall, and took a listen. ESPN was chattering away down on the left. Something liquid was pouring to the right.

He headed for Butch and Marissa’s room buck-ass naked. No reason to hide the bruising from Butch—SOB had seen it happen.

As he stepped into the doorway, he found the cop sitting on the end of his bed, elbows on his knees, glass of Lag in his palms, bottle between his loafers.

“You know what I’m thinking about right now?” the guy said without looking up.

V could guess it was a hell of a list. “Tell me.”

“The night I watched you throw yourself off the balcony at the Commodore. The night I thought you’d died.” Butch took a swig from his glass. “I assumed we were over that.”

“If it’s any consolation . . . so did I.”

“Why don’t you go see your mom. Talk this shit out with her.”

Like there was anything that female could say at this point? “I’d kill her, cop. I don’t know how I’d do it . . . but I’d kill the bitch for this. She leaves me to that sociopath of a father—being precisely aware of what he’s like, because, hello, she sees all. Then she keeps herself a secret from me for three hundred years, before she turns up on my birthday and wants to put me out to stud for her stupid-ass religion. But I could have punted on that shiz, true? My sister, my twin, though? She put Payne away, cop. Held her against her will. For centuries. And never told me I even had a sibling? That’s too fucking much. I’m done.” V stared at the Lag. “You got some juice to spare there?”

Butch corked the bottle and tossed the thing. As V caught it in his palm, the cop said, “Waking up dead is not the answer, though. And neither is getting your ass kicked like that.”

“You volunteering to do it for me, then? Because I’m going crazy and it needs out, Butch. For real. I’m dangerous over here. . . .” V took a pull on the booze and cursed as the slice in his lip made it feel like he’d sucked on the wrong end of a hand-rolled. “And I can’t think of any way to get it out of me—because I sure as fuck am not going to fall into my old habits.”

“Not tempted at all?”

V braced himself and then went for another drink. Through his grimace, he said, “I want the release, but I’m not going to be with anyone except Jane. No way I’m coming back to our mated bed with the stank of some slut all over my cock—it would ruin everything, not just for her but for me. Besides, what I need right now is a Dom, not a sub—and there’s no one I can trust.” Except maybe Butch, but that would cross too many lines. “So I’m caught. I got a screaming harpy in my head and nowhere to go with it . . . and it’s making me fucking mental.”

Jesus . . . he’d said it. All of it.

Go, him.

And the reward was another suck on the bottle. “Goddamn, my lip hurts.”

“No offense, but good—you deserve it.” Butch’s hazel eyes lifted, and after a moment, he smiled a little, flashing that cap on his front tooth as well as his fangs. “You know, I was really