Lover Avenged (Black Dagger Brotherhood 7)

This was just getting sicker. A three-way?

"Ehlena?"

Ehlena wheeled around so fast she jammed her hip against the wall that ran around the rooftop. As she saw who it was, she frowned.

"Doc Jane?" she said, thinking this night was going from the oh-hell-nos straight into WTF? territory. "What are you-"

"I think you're on the wrong side of the building."

"Wrong side-oh, wait, this isn't Rehvenge's place?"

"No, it's Vishous's and mine. Rehv's on the east side."

"Oh..." Red cheeks. Very red, and not because of the wind. "I'm so sorry, I got it wrong-"

The ghostly doctor laughed. "It's okay."

Ehlena glanced back at the glass, but then looked quickly away. Of course, that was the Brother Vishous. The one with the diamond eyes and the tattoos on his face.

"East side's what you want."

Which Rehv had told her, hadn't he. "I'll just go over there now."

"I'd invite you to cut through, but..."

"Yeah. Better for me to take myself there."

Doc Jane smiled with a good dose of badass. "I think that's best."

Ehlena calmed herself down and dematerialized to the right part of the roof, thinking, Doc Jane a dominatrix?

Well, stranger things had happened.

As she regained her form, she was almost afraid to look through the glass, considering what she'd just seen. If Rehvenge had more of the same-or worse, stuff like ladies clothes in a male's size, or farm animals milling around-she didn't know if she could chill enough to dematerialize her ass out of there.

But no. No RuPaul. Nothing that needed a trough or a fence. Just a lovely, modern interior done in the kind of sleek, simple furniture that must have come from Europe.

Rehvenge came out from an archway and stopped as he saw her. When he lifted his hand, the sliding glass door in front of her opened because he willed it so, and she caught a wonderful scent coming out of the penthouse.

Was that...roast beef?

Rehvenge came over to her, moving with a smooth gait in spite of the fact that he relied on his cane. Tonight, he wore a black turtleneck that was clearly cashmere and a stunning black suit, and in his fine clothes, he was something off the cover of a magazine, glamorous, seductive, ever out of reach.

Ehlena felt like a fool. Seeing him here in his beautiful home, it wasn't that she thought she was beneath him. It was just clear they had nothing in common. What kind of delusions had struck her when they'd talked or been at the clinic?

"Welcome." Rehvenge stopped at the door and extended his hand toward her. "I would have waited for you outside, but it's too cold for me."

Two totally different worlds, she thought.

"Ehlena?"

"Sorry." Because it would be rude not to, she put her hand in his and stepped into his penthouse. But in her mind, she had already left him.

As their palms met, Rehv was robbed, mugged, burgled, broken and entered: He felt nothing as their hands melded, and desperately wished he could sense Ehlena's warmth. Still, even though he was numb, just watching their flesh come together was enough to make his chest sparkle like it had been steel-wooled to a bright shine.

"Hi," she said in a husky way as he drew her in.

He shut the door and kept hold of her hand until she broke the contact, ostensibly to walk around and look at his place. He sensed, though, that she needed physical space.

"The view here is extraordinary." She stopped and stared out at the sprawling vista of the twinkling city. "Funny, it looks like a model from way up here."

"We are high, that's for sure." He watched her with obsessive eyes, absorbing her through his sight. "I love the view," he murmured.

"I can see why."

"And it's quiet." Private. Just them and no one else in the world. And alone with her here now, he could almost believe all the dirty things he'd done had been crimes committed by a stranger.

She smiled a little. "Of course it's quiet. They're using ball gags next door-er..."

Rehv laughed. "You get the wrong side of the building?"

"Did I ever."

That blush told him she had seen more than just inanimate objects from V's Bondage-R-Us collection, and suddenly Rehv was dead serious. "Do I need to say something to my neighbor?"

Ehlena shook her head at him. "It was totally not his fault, and fortunately he and Jane hadn't...er, started. Thank God."

"You're not into that kind of thing, I take it."

Ehlena went back to staring at the view. "Hey, they're consenting adults, so it's all good. But me personally? Not on your life."

Talk about bubble burst. If BDSM was too much for her, he guessed that meant she wouldn't understand the fact that he was f**king for ransom a female he hated. Who happened to be his half sister. Oh, and who was a symphath.

Like him.

His silence brought her head over her shoulder. "I'm sorry. Have I offended you?"

"I'm not into that either." Oh, not at all. He was a whore with standards-kinky crap was okay only if you were forced into it. Fuck the consensual shit V and his mate were into. Yeah, 'cuz that was just wrong.

Christ, he was beneath her.

Ehlena wandered around, her soft-soled shoes making no sound on his black marble floors. As he watched her, he realized that under her black wool coat she was in her uniform. Which was logical, he pointed out to himself, if she had to go to work after this.

Come on, he told himself. Did he really think she was going to stay the night?

"May I take your coat?" he said, knowing she must be warm. "I have to keep this place hotter than most people are comfortable with."

"Actually...I should just head off." She put a hand in her pocket. "I only came to give you the penicillin."

"I was hoping you'd stay for dinner."

"I'm sorry." She held out a plastic bag to him. "I can't."

Flashes of the princess tripped through Rehv's brain, and he reminded himself of how good it felt to do right by Ehlena-and erase her number from his phone. He had no business courting her. None at all.

"I understand." He took the pills from her. "And thank you for these."

"Take two four times a day. Ten days. Promise me?"

He nodded once. "Promise."

"Good. And try to go see Havers, will you?"

There was an awkward moment, and then she lifted her hand. "Okay...so, bye."

Ehlena turned away, and he opened the glass panel with his mind, not trusting himself to get too close to her.

Oh, please don't go. Please don't, he thought.

He just wanted to feel...clean for a little while.

Just as she walked out, she stopped and his heart pounded.

Ehlena glanced back, the wind ruffling the pale wisps around her lovely face. "With food. You need to take them with food."

Right. Medical information. "I've got plenty of that here."

"Good."

After he shut the door, Rehv watched her disappear into the shadows and had to make himself turn away.

Walking slowly and using his cane, he went down the wall of glass and around the corner into the glow of the dining room.

Two candles lit. Two place settings of silver. Two glasses for wine. Two glasses for water. Two napkins folded precisely and laid on top of two plates.

He sat down on the chair he'd been going to give to her, the one to his right, the position of honor. He rested his cane against his thigh and put the plastic bag down on the ebony table, smoothing it out so that the antibiotics were resting one next to another in a neat and orderly row.

He wondered why they hadn't come in a little orange bottle with a white label on it, but whatever. She had brought them to him here. That was the main thing.

Sitting in the silence, surrounded by candlelight and the scent of the roast beef he'd just taken out of the oven, Rehv stroked the plastic bag with his numb forefinger. Sure as shit he was feeling something, though. In the dead center of his chest, he had an ache behind his heart.

He'd done a lot of evil deeds over the course of his life. Big ones and small.

He'd set people up just to mess with them, whether they were rogue dealers infringing on his turf, or johns who didn't treat his whores right, or idiots who screwed around at his club.

He'd leveraged the vices of others to his benefit. Sold drugs. Sold sex. Sold death in the form of Xhex's special skills.

He'd f**ked for all the wrong reasons.