Black Dagger Brotherhood 11 - Lover at Last

to speak with the king. My shoulders are killing me from having been at that desk all night.”
    “Have a bath. It might loosen things up?”
    “Yes. A bath.”
    “I’ll see you later, then,” Blay said as he poured himself another and came over.
    Their mouths met in a brief kiss, after which Blay turned and strode out into the foyer, disappearing up the stairs to go change.
    Saxton watched him depart. Even moved forward a couple of steps so that he could see those shitkickers, as the Brothers called them, ascend the grand staircase one step at a time.
    Part of him was screaming to follow the male up into their bedroom and help him out of those clothes. Emotions aside, the physical sizzle between the two of them had always been strong, and he felt like he wanted to exploit that now.
    Except even that Band-Aid was fraying.
    Going over and pouring himself a sherry, he sipped it and went to sit before the fire. Fritz had refreshed the wood not long ago, and the flames were bright and active over the stack of logs.
    This was going to hurt, Saxton thought. But it wasn’t going to break him.
    He would eventually get over this. Heal. Move on.
    Hearts were broken all the time….
    Wasn’t there a song about that?
    The question was, of course, when did he talk to Blaylock about it.

NINE
    T he sound of cross-country skis traveling over snow was a rhythmic rush, repeated at a quick clip.
    The storm that had drifted down from the north had cleared after dawn, and the rising sun that shone beneath the lip of the departing cloud cover sliced through the forest to the sparkling ground.
    To Sola Morte, the shafts of gold looked like blades.
    Up ahead, her target presented itself like a Fabergé egg sitting on a stand: The house on the Hudson River was an architectural showpiece, a cage of seemingly fragile girders holding stack upon stack of countless panels of glass. On all sides, reflections of the water and the nascent sun were like photographs captured by a true artist, the images frozen in the very construction of the home itself.
    You couldn’t pay me to live like that,
Sola thought.
    Unless it was all bulletproof? But who had the money for that.
    According to the Caldwell public records department, the land had been purchased by a Vincent DiPietro two years before, and developed by the man’s real estate company. No expense had been spared on the construction—at least, given the valuation on the tax rolls, which was north of eight million dollars. Just after building was completed,the property changed hands, but not to a person: to a real estate trust—with only a lawyer in London listed as trustee.
    She knew who lived here, however.
    He was the reason she’d come.
    He was also the reason she had armed herself so thoroughly. Sola had lots of weapons in easy-to-reach places: a knife in a holster at the small of her back, a gun on her right hip, a switch hidden in the collar of her white-on-white camo parka.
    Men like her target did not appreciate being spied on—even though she came only in search of information, and not to kill him, she had no doubt that if she were found on the property, things would get tense. Quick.
    As she took her binocs out of an inside pocket, she kept still and listened hard. No sounds of anything approaching from the back or the sides, and in front, she had a clear visual shot at the rear of the house.
    Ordinarily, when she was hired for one of these kinds of assignments, she operated at night. Not with this target.
    Masters of the drug trade conducted their business from nine to five, but that would be p.m. to a.m., not the other way around. Daytime was when they slept and fucked, so that was when you wanted to case their houses, learn their habits, get a read on their staff and how they protected themselves during their downtime.
    Bringing the house into close focus, she made her assessment. Garage doors. Back door. Half windows that she guessed looked out of the kitchen. And then the full floor-to-ceiling glass sliders started up, running down the rear flank and around the corner that turned to the river’s shoreline.
    Three stories up.
    Nothing moving inside that she could see.
    Man, that was a lot of glass. And depending on the angle of the light, she could actually see into some of the rooms, especially the big open space that appeared to take up at least half of the first floor. Furniture was sparse and modern, as if the owner didn’t welcome people loitering.
    Bet the view