Page 42 of Lover Forbidden (The Black Dagger Brotherhood #23)

Well. That was fun.”

As Shuli carefully shifted his legs out of the back of the blacked-out Mercedes, he planted his monogrammed slippers on his shoveled walkway like he had a pressure bomb under each heel. He was beyond ready for some shut-eye in his own bed, but goddamn that was a long way to the door.

Looking up to the front of the vehicle, he said, “Thank you, Fritz. I can get myself out.”

From the wheel, the Brotherhood’s butler glanced with worry over his shoulder and bowed. “Oh, master. Are you sure?”

“You have other things to be concerned with.”

He nodded meaningfully at L.W., who was sitting beside him and staring off into space. Like the guy wasn’t even aware they’d pulled up to the house.

“Yes.” The elderly butler inclined his head again. “Do be well, master.”

It was hard to ignore the doggen’s vaguely panicked expression. Especially as it was backed up by absolutely no words. But the butler would never be so forward as to comment on someone’s decision to discharge himself from the training center’s medical center AMA.

No matter how stupid it was.

“Yeah, stay there, Fritz,” came the hoarse order from the other side of the bench seat. “I’ll take care of myself.”

Well, what do you know, it was aliiiiiive.

L.W. had been quiet the whole ride in, a brooding, mostly-not-leaking-anymore bag of badass in a set of hospital scrubs who had clearly been humbled by his femoral artery problem from the night before.

Pretty pathetic, really, but hey, Shuli was in bad shape, too—just better dressed.

Willhis had brought him his red satin robe-and-PJ set. Along with the slippers.

“Oh, master, you are getting out now?” Fritz unlatched his seatbelt in a panic as that other rear door was opened. “I thought perhaps you were returning home to the Wheel—”

“I live here. Besides, if he’s getting out, I am, too.”

That old face got even more wrinkled as the butler regarded the heir to the throne with eyes that were downright alarmed. “Sire, of course. But may I at least help you to the door?”

“No, you can’t.”

Leaving the pair of them to fight it out, Shuli extricated himself from the sedan’s backseat, and pinned a smile on his face through the pain—because he hoped, as his whole body protested the vertical, that he didn’t give away too much and trigger a medical review.

Meanwhile, on the far side of the Mercedes, L.W.

had the black Nike duffle bag with their weapons up on one shoulder, and the pair of crutches that had been forced on him under his armpits.

Meanwhile, Fritz was hyperventilating in the front seat. Except there wasn’t much he could do with that kind of direct command.

And after L.W. had hobbled around the rear of the car, he lined up with Shuli at the base of the shoveled walkway.

They even waved with the same hand, in coordination.

That Mercedes stayed right where it was, though, a curl of steam lifting from its tailpipe, the calling card of the gas-powered engine drifting off.

Undoubtedly, the butler was in a terrible internal debate, trapped by his need to serve—especially when it came to L.W.—and the lack of invitation to help. And this was causing a full body paralysis.

As time ticked by, Shuli just stayed where he was, like one of those repair shop inflatables. L.W. was the same, standing there like an idiot in the cold, waving his hand with an expression as if someone were driving nails into the soles of his feet.

Finally, the lights flared redder, the engine was engaged, and forward motion occurred.

They waited until Fritz had gone all the way down the private lane and taken a corner at the iron gate before dropping their arms with a couple of curses. It was as they turned around that the reason the doggen had departed became obvious.

Willhis was barreling down the snow path like he was worried they were going to both go into cardiac arrest if he didn’t show up with canapés, stat .

“Master! Sire!” The butler paddled to a halt, his spit-shined patent leather shoes having all the traction of twin ice cubes. “Allow me!”

As the duffle and its load of leather and weapons was pulled off the heir’s shoulder, Shuli was goddamn grateful when his doggen had the sense to offer him an arm.

Ordinarily, he would have tough-guy’d it and marched on his own, but not after the last twenty-four hours.

He loop-di-looped himself right around all the steady freddy, and together as a threesome, they started the shuffle up what was absolutely, positively the longest walkway that had ever existed.

L.W. took the lead, making better time with his crutches, and for some reason, maybe the painkillers in Shuli’s system, the dark figure the fighter cut against the stark, white house seemed like something out of a gritty noir comic book: All stark visual cuts, the “stately Wayne Manor” bullshit updated for a new audience, no longer Gothic-roofed and many-storied but as if the Guggenheim had decided to go private residence.

With all the money his parents had left him following their untimely deaths, he could afford to live anywhere, and he’d deliberately picked this place because it was not like the traditional mansion he’d grown up in.

Everything was different. Every piece of furniture, all the art and rugs. The staff, too.

Fresh start.

And now he had a roommate.

“Yay,” he muttered into the cold.

Willhis had left the door wide, and L.W.

hobbled right in, heading across all the polished while marble to the hallway that branched off to his wing of the house.

As he disappeared down to his rooms, Shuli remembered when the whole ahstrux nohtrum shit had first gone down.

It had been a relief to give the guy a whole section of the floor plan—in the hopes that the two wouldn’t run into each other very much.

There had also been a traitorous sense of security, having the fucker under his roof during the day and when they were home at night.

Not that he would have admitted it to anybody, especially His Royal High Horse-ness.

The reality was, though, Caldwell was getting more dangerous by the minute now, and L.W.

was a cantankerous sonofabitch, but no one could argue with his fighting abilities.

After what had been done to Shuli’s parents, he didn’t sleep all that well—

Nope, he was not going there.

Willhis stopped. “Master? You’re not going where?”

Shit, he’d said that out loud. “Sorry, ignore me.”

Once he was over the threshold, he dropped the doggen ’s arm and measured the floating staircase that went up to the second floor. As he tilted his head back and counted the steps, the ache over his hip sharpened to an outright pain.

“Perhaps master would like to use the elevator?”

“You’re so right, Willhis.”

“May I bring you aught?”

“I already ate at the clinic, but thanks.” He took the duffle from the butler and started walking down to the Otis.

“You might want to bring some food and drink into L.W.’s room.

Just make it like breakfast stuff with a carafe of fresh coffee?

Knock to announce your presence, but don’t ask for permission to come in, and like, leave the tray on the bureau and walk out.

Don’t ask him anything. He’ll just tell you to fuck off. ”

“Oh, yes, master. I shall do that right away—”

Shuli stopped in front of the elevator doors and pushed the summoning button. “One other thing. He’s supposed to be on pain meds, but he’s not going to take them.”

“Should I prepare a pill schedule in the event he forgets?”

“No, he left the stuff back at the clinic. I want you to bring him a bottle of Jim Beam. He’ll drink it so he passes out.”

“But of course.” Willhis bowed low. “And for you, master?”

“Oh, I took everything they wanted to give me and I got backups in this duffle bag.” As a bing! sounded out, he put his hand forward. “Thank you, though.”

“My pleasure, master. I shall attend to our guest immediately.”

He swung the duffle into the elevator, where it landed with a thump . “He’s not a guest. He’s our roommate.”

Stepping in, Shuli hit the button and watched the door close on his butler’s worried face.

During the ride up, he propped himself against the mirrored wall and hung on to the chrome balustrade.

There was a bump to announce the arrival, and the doors opened.

No reason to pretend to be a tough guy now.

He let the bag drag along on the thick white carpet.

The second floor had all kinds of bedroom suites opening off both sides of the white-on-white-on-white hallway.

The primary suite was all the way down at the end, and as he continued to haul his sorry ass and the bag along, he wondered: (1) why he didn’t live in a smaller house; and (2) why he didn’t take advantage of any of the other cribs.

It was like when you hit a tennis ball off the rim of your racket. You paid for that part, even if it wasn’t the sweet spot in the middle.

Or something like that.

“What was the question,” he mumbled.

In a stunning optical illusion—one that echoed the shit with the snowy walkway—the corridor seemed to get longer the farther he went. It also felt like he was getting shorter, for some reason.

When he finally got to his door, he went to open it with his mind. Failed. Had to do things the old-fashioned way and turn the knob.

His inner sanctum of white-on-white-on-white reminded him of a cloud, and when he’d hit the blanco so hard with the decorator, he’d told himself it was to set off the Rothkos he was collecting. Give them a backdrop to really show off on.

As he kicked the heavy panel closed now… he just thought it showed a lack of commitment. Like he’d moved his things in, but he hadn’t moved himself in.

“Fine. Okay, that’s great.”