Christ, maybe that was the point. They'd already had sex once and she was returning for more.
"Sire?"
"Nothing. You'd better go. I'm sure he's waiting."
"Indeed." Layla's fragrance surged, the cinnamon spice flaring in Blay's nose. "And for that I am so grateful."
As she turned and left, Blay watched her hips sway and felt like screaming. He did not want to think of Qhuinn having sex next door--for f**k's sake, the mansion had been the one place uncontaminated by all the extracurricular grind.
Now, though, all he could see was Layla walking into Qhuinn's room and letting that white robe fall down from her shoulders, her br**sts and her belly and her thighs revealed to his mismatched stare. She'd be in his bed and under his body in the blink of an eye.
And Qhuinn would do her right. That was the thing, at least when it came to sex: He was generous with his time and his talents. He'd be all over her with everything he had, his hands and his mouth--
Right. No need to go there.
Toweling off, it occured to him that maybe Layla was the perfect partner for the guy. With her training, she would not only please him on every level, she would never expect monogamy from him or resent him for his other exploits or push him for emotional connections he didn't feel. She would probably even join in the fun, because it was obvious by the way she walked that she was comfortable with her body.
She was perfect for him. Better than Blay, for sure.
Besides, Qhuinn had made it clear he was going to end up with a female... a traditional female with traditional values who was preferably from the aristocracy, assuming he could find one who would take him even with the defect of those mismatched peepers.
Layla totally fit that bill--nothing more old-school or highbred than a Chosen and it was clear she wanted him.
Feeling like he was cursed, Blay went into his closet and changed into nylon shorts and an Under Armour shirt. No way was he going to sit here and cozy up with a good book while whatever was going down next door went down--
Yeah. Didn't need those pictures either, even in the hypothetical.
Stepping out into the hall of statues, he rushed down past the marble figures, envying them their calm poses and their serene faces. Sure as shit the everything's-cool routine made being inanimate seem like a good deal. Whereas it meant they felt no joy, they didn't have to go through this burning pain, either.
When he got down to the foyer, he shot around the banister's curling end and ducked through the hidden doorway. In the tunnel to the training center, he struck up a jog as a warm-up and as he emerged through the back of the office closet, he didn't slow down. The weight room was the only place he could stand to be right now. Good hour or so on the StairMaster and he might not feel like peeling his own skin off with a rusty spoon.
Coming out into the corridor, he pulled up short as he saw a lone figure propped against the concrete wall.
"Xhex? What are you doing here?" Well, other than clearly staring a hole in the floor.
The female glanced over and her dark gray eyes seemed like hollow pits. "Hey."
Blay frowned as he walked up to her. "Where's John?"
"He's in there." She nodded at the door to the weight room.
Which would explain the dull pounding he heard. Somebody was clearly running the shit out of one of the treadmills.
"What happened?" Blay said, putting her expression and what John's Nikes were doing together--and coming up with a whole lot of oh-shit.
Xhex let her head fall against the wall that was holding her body up. "It was all I could do to get him back here."
"Why?"
Her eyes flicked over. "Let's just say he wants after Lash."
"Well, that's understandable."
"Yeah."
As the word drifted out of her mouth, he had a sense he didn't know the half of it, but it was clear that was as far as she was going to go with the commentary.
Abruptly, her storm cloud-colored stare sharpened on his face. "So you're the reason Qhuinn was in such a bad mood tonight."
Blay recoiled, and then shook his head. "It's got nothing to do with me. Qhuinn is usually in a bad mood."
"People going in the wrong direction will get like that. Round pegs just don't fit in square holes."
Blay cleared his throat, thinking symphaths, even ones who were arguably not against you, were not the kind of thing you wanted to be around when you were raw and exposed. Like, say, when the male you wanted was doing right by a Chosen who had a face like an angel and a body built for sin.
God only knew what Xhex was picking up on from where his head was at.
"Well... I'm going for a workout." Like his rig wasn't a dead giveaway.
"Good. Maybe you can talk to him."
"I will." Blay hesitated, thinking Xhex looked a little too much like he felt. "Listen, not for nothing, but you're clearly spent. Maybe you could go up to a guest room and sleep?"
She shook her head. "I'm not leaving him. And I'm out here waiting only because I was making him crazy. The sight of me... isn't good for his mental health at the moment. I'm hoping that's no longer true after he breaks this second treadmill."
"Second?"
"I'm pretty damn sure the flapping and the smell of smoke about fifteen minutes ago meant he ran one of them into the ground."
"Damn."
"Yup."
Bracing himself, Blay ducked into the weight room--
"Jesus... Christ. John."
His voice didn't carry at all. Then again, the roar of the treadmill and John's slamming strides would have drowned out a car backfiring.
The guy's massive body was in a full-out bolt on the machine, his T- shirt and torso dripping with sweat, droplets flicking off his cranked fists and creating twin tracts of damp on either side on the floor. Both his white socks had red blushes streaking up from his heels as if he'd worn patches of skin off, and the black nylon shorts he had on his hips slapped like a wet towel.
"John?" Blay shouted, as he measured the burned-out machine next to the one the guy was on. "John!"
When yelling didn't bring that head around, Blay stalked over and waved his hands right in the guy's visual field. And then wished he hadn't. The eyes that locked on his were blazing with a hatred so vicious, Blay took a step back.
As John refocused on the air in front of his face, it was pretty damn clear that the f**ker was going to keep this up until he was a yard shorter from having run his legs into stubs.
"John, how 'bout you step off!" Blay hollered. "Before you fall off?"
No response. Just the screaming whirl of the treadmill and the carpet- bombing sound of those feet.
"John! Come on, now! You're killing yourself!"
Fuck this.
Blay walked around behind the piece of equipment and yanked the cord out of the wall. The abrupt slowdown caused John to trip and fall forward, but he caught himself on the console's arms. Or maybe just collapsed onto them.
His heaving breaths tore in and out of his lax mouth as his head lolled on his arm.
Blay pulled a weight bench over and parked it so he could look into the guy's face. "John... what the hell's going on?"
John let go of the console and fell back on his ass, his legs giving out from under him. After a series of sawing breaths, he drew his hand through his wet hair.
"Talk to me, John. I'll keep it just between us. I swear it on the life of my mother."
It was quite a while before John lifted his head, and when he did, his eyes were shiny. And not from sweat or exertion.
"Talk to me and it goes nowhere," Blay whispered. "What happened? Tell me."
When the guy eventually signed, it was messy, but Blay read the words just fine.
He hurt her, Blay. He... hurt her.
"Well, yeah, I know. I heard about the shape she was in when she--"
John squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head.
In the tense silence that followed, the skin on the back of Blay's neck tightened. Oh... shit.
There had been more to it. Hadn't there.
"How bad," Blay growled.
Bad as it gets, John mouthed.
"Motherfucker. Bastard ass motherfucker. Cocksucking rat-bitch bastard mother f**ker!"
Blay wasn't big into the swearing thing, but sometimes that was all you had to offer the ears of others: Xhex wasn't his female, but you didn't hurt the fairer sex as far as he was concerned. For any reason... and never, ever like that.
God, her pained expression hadn't been just worry for John. It had been about memories. Awful, hideous memories...