Just Blay letting his head fall back and his lids dri
ft down. He looked utterly exhausted and, for the first time, older. That was no recently out-of-transition boy over there. That was a full-blooded male.
A stunningly beautiful . . . full-blooded . . . male.
In his mind, Qhuinn saw himself opening the door and stepping inside. Blay would look over and try to sit up . . . but Qhuinn would wave him down as he walked over.
He would ask about the injury. And Blay would open the robe to show him.
Qhuinn would reach out and touch the bandage . . . and then he would let his fingers wander off the gauze and the surgical tape onto the warm, smooth skin of Blay’s stomach. Blay would be shocked, but in this fantasy, he wouldn’t push the hand away. . . . He would take it lower, down past the injury, down onto his hips and his—
“Fuck !”
Qhuinn leaped back, but it was too late: Saxton had somehow come into the room, walked over to the windows, and started to pull the drapery shut. And in the process, he’d seen the ass-wipe outside on the terrace who was making like a security camera.
As Qhuinn wheeled around and hotfooted it back for his room, he thought, Don’t open the door . . . don’t open the door—
“Qhuinn?”
Busted.
Freezing like a burglar caught with a plasma-screen under his armpit, he made sure his robe was closed before he turned around. Shit. Saxton was stepping out, and the bastard was also in a robe.
Well, he guessed they were all sporting them. Even Layla had been in one.
As Qhuinn faced off at his cousin, he realized he hadn’t said more than two words to the guy since Saxton had moved in.
“I just wondered how he was.” No reason to use a proper noun—pretty damn obvi who he’d been staring at.
“Blaylock’s asleep at the moment.”
“He feed?” Even though Qhuinn already knew that.
“Yes.” Saxton shut the door behind himself, no doubt to keep the cold out, and Qhuinn tried to ignore the fact that the guy’s feet and ankles were bare. Because it meant that chances were good the rest of him was also.
“Ah, sorry to have disturbed you,” Qhuinn muttered. “Have a good n—”
“You could have just knocked. From the hall inside.” The words were spoken with an aristocratic inflection that made Qhuinn’s skin tighten up all over. Not because he hated Saxton. It just reminded him too much of the family he’d lost.
“I didn’t want to bother you. Him. Either one of you.”
As a gust curled up against the house, Saxton’s impossibly thick and wavy blond hair didn’t even ruffle—as if every part of him, down to his follicles, was simply too composed and well-bred to be affected by . . . anything.
“Qhuinn, you wouldn’t be interrupting a thing.”
Liar, Qhuinn thought.
“You were here first, cousin,” Saxton murmured. “If you wished to see him, or be with him, I would leave you two alone.”
Qhuinn blinked. So . . . the pair of them had an open relationship? What the hell?
Or wait . . . maybe he’d just done a masterful job in convincing not only Blay, but Saxton, that he didn’t want his best friend for anything sexual.
“Cousin, may I speak candidly?”
Qhuinn cleared his throat. “Depends on what you have to say.”
“I’m his lover, cousin—”