Black Dagger Brotherhood 11 - Lover at Last

soap in the dish that was mounted on the tile did its duty with alacrity upon his skin and his hair—
    And he was still erect when it was time to get out.
    The cold air would take care of that.
    Stepping onto the bath mat, that was also done in that god-awful deep pinky red, he toweled himself off.
    Still erect.
    Glancing at his fighting clothes, he found himself loath to put them upon his skin. Rough. Scratchy. Dirty.
    Mayhap the feminine environment was contaminating him.
    Xcor ended up in the big bed, naked, upon his back.
    Still erect.
    A quick glance at the clock on the bedside table and he knew he didn’t have long before the house was inundated with fighters.
    This was going to have to be quick.
    Funneling his hand under the sheets and down his body, he gripped himself….
    Xcor’s eyes shut hard and he moaned, his torso twisting from the heat and need that curled up from his lower body. As the pillow came up to greet the side of his face—logically, it was the other way around, he supposed—he began to pump up and down.
    Delicious. Especially at the top, where his blunt head ached for attention and got it on every upstroke. Faster. Tighter.
    All the while seeing his Chosen.
    In truth, the image of her did more for him than what he attended to down below. And as the sensations grew ever stronger, he realized for the first time why his soldiers did this so often. So good. So very, very good…
    Oh, his female was beautiful. To the point where, in spite of the power of what he was doing to himself, he was not distracted from her visage. Instead, she became achingly clear to him, from her pale hair to her red lips to her slender neck—all the way down that long, elegant body that was both hidden and revealed by the pristine white robing she had worn.
    What would it be like to be wanted by such a creature? To be held within her sacred body as a male of worth…
    At that very moment, the reality of her pregnancy re-landed on him like a physical weight. But at least it was too late. Even as his heart chilled and his chest began to ache with the knowledge that she had accepted another, his body continued on its joyride, the conclusion as unstoppable as a—
    The orgasm that swept through him made him cry out—and thank the Fates for the pillow that caught his capitulation: At that very moment, down below, he heard the first of his soldiers walk through the house, the drumbeat of combat boots an unmistakable thunder he would recognize anywhere.
    The aftermath of his release was wretched on too many levels to count. He had turned upon his injured shoulder; he had come all over his hand and abdomen as well as the sheets; and the vision of loveliness was gone from his head, his hard reality all that remained.
    The pain inside of him was raw as a fresh wound.
    But at least none would otherwise know of it.
    He was, after all, first and foremost, a soldier.

SIXTY-SIX
    “Y es, absolutely you can go see him. He’s groggy, but aware.”
    As Doc Jane smiled up at Qhuinn, he jacked his leathers higher on his hips and tucked in his muscle shirt. He drew the line at smoothing his hair down, however, forcing his arms to stay at his sides even though his palms were itching to pull a drag-through.
    “And he’s going to be okay?”
    The doctor nodded as she began to untie the surgical mask that was hanging around the front of her neck. “We removed the vampire equivalent of the human spleen, and that took care of the internal bleeding. We also went through him with a fine-toothed comb. Near as we can figure, he was in some kind of stasis in that oil drum, the Omega’s blood somehow preserving him in his current state in spite of the injuries. If he’d been left out, I’m very certain he would have died.”
    The curse that brought about a miracle, Qhuinn thought.
    “And he’s not contaminated?”
    Jane shrugged. “He bleeds red, and no one can sense any of the Omega in him—it was just a case of on or around him.”
    “Okay. All right.” Qhuinn glanced at the door. “Good.”
    Time to go in, he told himself. Come on….
    His eyes went to Blay’s. During the course of the four-hour operation, the guy had gone back and forth down the hall, taking breaks out in the parking lot for cigs. He’d always returned, though.
    God, he looked grim.
    Had ever since V had come out and found them…yeah.
    Christ, what timing had that been.
    “I’ll go in now,” he said.
    It wasn’t until after Blay nodded that he actually