Black Dagger Brotherhood 11 - Lover at Last

survived his transition and had any sexual impulse at all. This moment was the culmination of countless daydreams and innumerable fantasies, his secret desire made manifest.
    And it was honest: Qhuinn’s mismatched eyes were without shadows—or doubts. The male was not only speaking the God’s honest as he knew it in his heart; he was at peace with laying himself vulnerable like this.
    Blay closed his lids briefly. This submission was the opposite of everything that defined Qhuinn as a male. He never surrendered—not his principles, not his weapons, never, ever himself. Then again, the turnaround did make some kind of sense. Facing death did tend to be followed by a come-to-Jesus chaser….
    The trouble was, he had a feeling this wasn’t going to last. This “eye-opener” was undoubtedly tied to that plane ride, but as with aheart attack victim resuming his piss-poor diet soon afterward, the “revelation” probably didn’t have a long shelf life. Yeah, Qhuinn meant what he was saying in this heady moment—there was no doubting that. It was hard to believe it was permanent, however.
    Qhuinn was who he was. And soon enough, after the shock wore off—maybe at nightfall, maybe next week, maybe a month from now—he was going to go back to his closed-off, hands-off, distant self.
    Decision made, Blay reopened his lids and bent down. As their faces got closer, Qhuinn’s lips parted, the fuller, lower one pursing as if he were already trying out the taste of what he wanted—and liking it.
    Fuck
. The fighter was so magnificent, his powerful bare chest glowing in the lamplight, his skin carrying a sheen of arousal, his pierced nipples rising and falling to the driving beat of his heated blood.
    Blay ran his hand down the corded muscles of the arm that linked them, from the heavy thickness of the shoulder to the bulge of the biceps and the cut curl of the triceps.
    He removed the palm from his thigh.
    And stepped away.
    Qhuinn paled to the point of going gray.
    In the silence, Blay didn’t say a word. He couldn’t—his voice was gone.
    On sloppy, loose legs, he scrambled for the way out, his hand flapping around the doorknob until it gathered enough coordination to open up the exit. Walking out, he couldn’t have said whether he slammed the door or shut it quietly.
    He didn’t make it far. Barely three feet toward his room, he collapsed back against the smooth, cool wall of the hallway.
    Panting. He was panting.
    And all that effort wasn’t doing any good. The suffocation in his chest was getting worse, and abruptly his vision was replaced by black-and-white checkerboard squares.
    Figuring he was about to pass out, he sank down onto his haunches and put his head between his knees. In the recesses of his mind, he prayed that the hall stayed empty. This was not the kind of thing he wanted to explain to anyone: outside of Qhuinn’s room, hard-on obvious, body shaking like he had his own personal earthquake going on.
    “Jesus Christ…”
    I almost died tonight—that sets a male straight. Up there in thatairplane, looking over the dark night, I didn’t think I was going to make it. Everything got clear for me.
    “No,” Blay said out loud. “
No
…”
    Putting his head in his hands, he tried to breathe calmly, think rationally, act reasonably. He couldn’t afford to go any deeper in this—
    Those heated, glossy, mismatched eyes had been the stuff of legend.
    “
No
,” he hissed.
    As his voice resonated inside his own skull, he resolved to listen to himself. No further. This would go no further.
    He’d long ago lost his heart to that male.
    There was no reason to lose his soul, too.

    An hour later, maybe two, maybe six, Qhuinn lay naked between cool sheets, staring up in the dark at a ceiling he could not see.
    Was this horrible, aching pain what Blay had felt? Like, after that showdown in his parents’ basement—when Qhuinn had been prepared to leave Caldwell, and made it clear that there were gonna be no ties between them anymore? Or maybe after that time they’d kissed in the clinic, and Qhuinn had refused to go any further? Or following that final collision when they had nearly come together, right before Blay’s first date with Saxton?
    So damn hollow.
    Like this room, really: Without illumination, and essentially empty, just four walls and a ceiling. Or a bag of skin and a skeleton, as it were.
    Shifting his hand up, he put it over his beating heart just to reassure himself he still had