Yeah, only one place to go for the answer to that.
Shit, he hadn’t even thought of his mother in all this. And now that he was . . . he had absolutely no desire or interest to pop up there and announce that Payne was doing great, fuck you very much.
Nope. If the Scribe Virgin wanted to keep tabs on what her “children” were up to? She could look into those fakakta seeing bowls she liked so much.
He kissed his shellan. “I don’t care what the calendar says or about the birth order. That’s my baby sister, and she’s never going to be old enough to . . . ‘um, yeah.’ ”
Jane laughed and retucked herself under his arm. “You are a very sweet male.”
“Nah.”
“Yeah.”
Leading her into the dining room and over to the table, he gallantly pulled her chair out for her, and then he sat to her left so that she was at his dagger hand.
As talk took root in the air, and people set to their plates, and his Jane laughed at something Rhage had said, Vishous looked across to see Butch and Marissa smiling at each other, and holding hands.
You know what, he thought . . . life was pretty fucking good right now.
It truly was.
FIFTY-SIX
Upstairs, Manny kicked the door shut behind him and his woman, and then he walked her over to a bed the size of a football field.
No reason to lock them in. Only an idiot would disturb them.
The glow from the now unshuttered windows gave him enough light to see by, and damn if he didn’t like what was before his eyes: his woman, safe and sound, laid out on . . . Well, okay, this wasn’t their bed, but he was damn well going to turn it into that before morning came.
As he sat down beside her, he discreetly tried to hide the raging hard-on he’d had ever since he’d seen her walk through that door. And though there was a lot they had to talk about, all he could do was stare at her.
Except then the physician in him came out. “You were injured?”
Her lovely hands went down to her robe, and the higher her hem came up, the lower her lids drifted. “I think you’ll find I’m healed. It was but a grazing wound way . . . up here.”
He swallowed hard. Fuck . . . yeah, she was fine. The skin of her upper thigh was as smooth as porcelain.
“Mayhap you should examine me closely, however,” she drawled.
His lips parted as his lungs got tight. “Are you sure you’re okay—and they didn’t . . . hurt you.”
He would never get over that.
Payne sat up and met him straight in the eye. “What has always been meant for you remains yours for the taking.”
He closed his eyes briefly. Then he didn’t want her to get the wrong impression. “It’s not like it would matter to me if you weren’t . . . I mean, it’s not a propriety thing—” Hell’s bells, he couldn’t seem to talk tonight. “I just can’t bear for you to be hurt.”
Her smile made him grateful for the mattress under his ass. Because if he’d been standing, she’d have knocked him out.
“I’m sorry about last night,” he said. “I made a mistake—”
She put her hand to his mouth. “We are where we are now. That is all I care about.”
“And I have something I need to tell you.”
“Are you leaving me?”
“Never.”