Lover Unleashed (Black Dagger Brotherhood 9)

“Thank you, brother mine,” she said, eyes locked on him.

Vishous stopped. The tension in him was so great, both of his fists were curled in tight, and as his head slowly cranked around, his icy eyes burned.

“I would do anything for you. Anything.”

With that, he pushed his way out . . . and as the door eased shut, she realized that I love you could indeed be said without actually uttering the phrase.

Actions did mean more than words.

TWENTY

As the pair of them were left alone together, Manny couldn’t get enough of looking at his patient. His stare just kept going over her face and her throat and her long, lovely hands. Jesus, she smelled the same, that perfume of hers burrowing into his nose and going straight to his cock.

“I knew you were real,” he repeated. Christ, it probably would have been better to say something else, anything else, but that was all he had, evidently: The relief at the fact that he wasn’t going crazy was just overwhelming.

At least until the luminous sheen of tears in her eyes registered . . . along with bottomless lack of hope in her stare.

He’d done all he could for her, and yet he had failed. Totally.

Although it wasn’t as if he hadn’t guessed her condition before now. That brother of hers hadn’t come into the human world again because shit was going so frickin’ well on this side.

“How are you doing?” he asked.

As he stared into her eyes, she slowly shook her head. “Alas . . . I am . . .”

When she didn’t finish, he reached for her hand and held on to it. God, her skin was soft. “Talk to me.”

“My legs . . . are no better.”

He cursed under his breath. He wanted to do an exam on her and look at her newest X-rays . . . maybe make arrangements to get her into St. Francis for another MRI.

But, as critical as all that assessment stuff was, it could wait. Right now, she was fragile emotionally, and he needed to help her deal with that first.

“No feeling still?” he said.

When she shook her head, a tear escaped and slid down her cheek. He hated that she was crying, but as God was his savior, he had never seen anything so beautiful as those eyes of hers.

“I am . . . e’er to be thus,” she said on a shudder.

“And ‘thus’ to you means precisely what?”

“Here. Upon this bed. Stuck.” Her eyes didn’t just hold his, but reached out and grabbed them. “I cannot countenance this torture. Not for a night more.”

She was dead fucking serious, and for a split second, he felt a terror that cut right through to his soul. Maybe in another female . . . or male, for that matter . . . a statement like that might have been an emotional release of despair. For her? It was a plan.

“You got Internet around here?” he asked.

“Internet?”

“A computer with access to the Web.”

“Ah . . . I believe there is one in the larger room beyond. Through that other door.”

“I’ll be right back. Stay here.”

That got a half smile. “Wherever shall I go, healer?”

“That’s what I’m going to show you.”