Lover Avenged(85)

“You know, she’s really into you,” Blay said with a hint of admiration. “I mean, I thought we came here just so you could stare at her. But I didn’t know she was looking at you like that, too.”

John ducked his head to cover up his cheeks as they waaaaay surpassed the red of Blay’s hair.

“You know where her office is, John.” Qhuinn’s mismatched eyes stayed level as he tilted back his freshie and drank hard. “Go there. Now. At least one of us can get a little relief.”

John eased back and rubbed his thighs, thinking exactly what Qhuinn was. But did he have the balls for that? What if he approached her and she turned him down?

What if he lost his hard-on again?

As he remembered what he’d seen in his head, though, he wasn’t so worried about that. He was ready to orgasm right where he sat.

“You could go back into her office alone,” Qhuinn continued softly. “I can wait at the head of the hall and make sure no one interrupts. You’ll be safe, and it will be private.”

John thought of the one and only time he and Xhex had been in an enclosed space alone together. It had been back in August in the men’s bathroom on the mezzanine floor, and she’d found him careening out of a stall, drunk as shit. Even as polluted as he’d been, one look at her and he’d been ready to go, desperate for her sex-and thanks to a boatload of Corona confidence, he’d had the colossal cojones to go up to her and write her a little message on a paper towel. It had been payback for what she herself had demanded of him.

Fair was fair. He wanted her to say his name when she got herself off.

Since then they’d kept apart at the club, but damn close in their beds-and he knew she’d been doing as he’d asked; he could tell by the way she looked at him. And tonight’s little telepathic exchange about what she was thinking they should be doing in one of the bathrooms was proof positive that even she followed orders once in a while.

Qhuinn put a hand on John’s arm, and when he looked over, the guy signed, Timing is everything, John.

Too true. She wanted him, and tonight it was not just in the fantasy, home-alone sense. John didn’t know what had changed for her or what the trigger was, but his cock didn’t give a shit about those kinds of details.

Outcome was all that mattered.

Literally.

Besides, for fuck’s sake, was he going to stay a virgin for the rest of his life just because of something that had been done to him a lifetime ago? Timing was everything, and he was sick and tired of sitting on his hands, denying himself what he really wanted.

John rose to his feet and nodded once at Qhuinn.

“Thank fuck,” the guy said as he slid out of the banquette. “Blay, we’ll be back.”

“Take your time. And, John, good luck, okay?”

John clapped his friend on the shoulder and jacked up his jeans before heading out of the VIP section. Qhuinn and he passed by the bouncers standing at the velvet rope and then the sweaty dancers grinding and the people making out and a crowd that was gathering for last call around the big bar. Xhex was nowhere to be found, and he wondered if she hadn’t left for the night.

No, he thought. She had to be here to close up, because Rehv hadn’t been seen around.

“Maybe she’s already in her office,” Qhuinn said.

As they went up the stairs to the mezzanine floor, he thought of the first time he’d met her. Talk about wrong foot. She’d dragged him down this hallway and interrogated him after she’d caught him tucking a gun so Qhuinn and Blay could have some tail in peace. That was how she’d learned his name and his ties to Wrath and the Brotherhood, and the way she’d manhandled him had been a total turn-on…once he’d gotten over the conviction that she was going to tear him limb from limb.

“I’ll be right here.” Qhuinn stopped at the head of the corridor. “It’s going to be fine.”

John nodded and then put one foot after the other, after the other, the hall getting darker and darker as he went along. When he got to her door, he didn’t pause to gather himself, too afraid he’d pull a pussy and bolt back to his buddy.

Yeah, and how ball-less would that look?

Besides, he wanted this. He needed this.

John lifted his knuckles to knock-and froze. Blood. He smelled…blood.

Hers.

Without thinking, he busted open the door and-

Oh. My. God, he mouthed.

Xhex’s head snapped up from what she was doing, and the sight of her burned his eyes. Her leathers were off and draped on the edge of the chair, her legs streaked with her own blood…blood that welled from the barbed metal bands that were locked around both her thighs. She had one black boot up on the desk and was in the process of…tightening them?