Lover Unleashed

As his erection started thumping, he took his female’s hand—

The grandfather clock in the corner started to chime, and then he heard four deep bongs. Which made him pull back a little and check his watch even though he didn’t need to—because that clock had kept time correctly for two hundred years.

Four a.m.? Where the hell was Payne?

As the urge to go to the Commodore and bring his sister home struck hard, he reminded himself that although dawn was coming fast, she still had maybe an hour left. And given what he and Jane were about to do behind a closed door, he couldn’t really blame her for eking out every moment she had with her male—even if he was absolutely, positively not going there.

“Everything okay?” Jane asked.

Getting back with the program, he dropped his head. “It will be as soon as I get you up on that counter.”

He and Jane were in the loo for forty-five minutes.

When they came out, everyone was still in the billiards room. The music had been cranked and Lil Wayne’s “I’m Not a Human Being” was echoing up to the foyer’s ceiling. The doggen were buzzing around with little fancy crap on silver trays, and Rhage had a circle of laughing people around him as he cracked jokes.

For a moment, it felt like the good old days.

But then he didn’t see his sister in the crowd. And no one came over to tell him she’d gone up to the guest room she’d been using.

“I’ll be right back,” he said to Jane. A quick kiss and he ducked out of the party, skated across the foyer, and went into the empty dining room. Rounding the fully set but very empty table, he got his cell from his pocket and dialed the phone he’d given her.

No answer.

He tried again. No answer. Third time? No . . . goddamn answer.

With a curse, he punched in Manello’s number, and shuddered at what he might be interrupting—but they’d probably pulled the drapes and lost track of time. And phones could defo get lost in sheets, he thought with a wince.

Ring . . . ring . . . ring . . .

“Fucking pick up—”

“Hello?”

Manello sounded bad. Gunshot bad. Mortal-injury bad.

“Where is my sister.” Because there was no way the surgeon was like that if she were in his bed.

The pause was not good news, either. “I don’t know. She left here hours ago.”

“Hours?”

“What’s going on?”

“Jesus Christ—” V hung up on the guy, and called her phone again. And again.

Cranking his head around, he looked out to the foyer and the door to the vestibule.

With a subtle whirring sound, the steel shutters that protected the house from the sun started to ease down into place.

Come on, Payne . . . come home. Right now.

Right . . .

Now . . .

Jane’s gentle touch snapped him back to reality. “Is everything okay?” she asked.

His first instinct was to cover it all up with a crack about Rhage’s impression of Steve-O in a projectile Porta-Potty. Instead, he forced himself to be real with his mate.

“Payne is . . . maybe MIA.” As she gasped and reached out with her other hand, he kind of wanted to bolt. But he held his feet to the Oriental rug. “She left Manello’s”—hours ago—“ah, hours ago. And now I’m just praying to a mother I despise that she comes through that door.”

Jane didn’t say anything further. Instead, she angled herself so she could also see the way in from the vestibule and waited with him.

Taking her hand, he realized that it was a relief not to be alone as the party raged on across the way . . . and his sister still did not come home.

That vision he’d had of her on the black horse, going at a screaming tilt, came back to him in the silence of the dining room. Her dark hair was flying out behind her as the stallion’s mane streaked as well, the pair on a tear . . . to God only knew where.

Allegorical? he wondered. Or just the yearnings of her brother that she finally be free . . . ?

Jane and he were still standing there together, staring at a door that did not open, when the sun officially rose twenty-two minutes later.

As Manny paced around his condo, he was going balls. Absolute balls. He’d meant to leave his condo shortly after Payne had, but he’d run out of gas and had ended up spending the whole night staring out . . . into the night.

Too fucking empty.

He’d been just too fucking empty to move.

When the phone had rung beside him, he’d checked the number and come briefly alive. Private caller. It had to be her.

And considering his mind had been going over what he’d said to her again and again, he’d needed a second to pull things together after all that useless spinning. That speech he’d rolled out had, at the time, seemed so rational and reasonable and smart . . . until he’d stared down the barrel at a future that was beyond vacant and deep into black hole.

He’d accepted the call not expecting anything male on the connection. Much less her brother.

Much less the bastard going all surprise-surprise when Payne wasn’t at the condo.

While Manny marched around in circles, he stared at his phone, willing it to ring again . . . willing the fucking piece of shit to go off and have it be Payne telling him she was okay. Or her brother. Anyone.

Any-cocksucking-one.

For chrissakes, Al Roker could call him with the goddamn news she was all right.

Except the dawn arrived way too soon and his phone stayed way too quiet. And like a loser, he went into his recent-calls list and tried to hit back “private caller.” When all he got was a dial tone again, he wanted to throw the cell across the room, but then where would that leave him.

The impotence was a crusher. A total crusher.

He wanted to go out and . . . shit, find Payne if she was lost. Or bring her the fuck back home if she was out by herself. Or—

The phone went off. Private caller.

“Thank fuck,” he said as he accepted it. “Payne—”

“No.”

Manny closed his eyes: Her brother sounded like hell. “Where is she.”

“We don’t know. And there’s nothing that we can do from here—we’re trapped inside.” The guy exhaled like he was smoking something. “What the fuck happened before she left? I thought she’d be spending all night with you. It’s cool if you two . . . you know . . . but why did she leave so early?”

“I told her it wasn’t going to work out.”

Long silence. “What the fuck are you thinking?”

Clearly if it hadn’t been all bright and sunny outside, motherfucker would have been knocking on Manny’s door, looking to kick some Italian ass.

“I thought that would make you happy.”

“Oh, yeah. Abso—break my sister’s fucking heart. I’m all for that.” Another sharp exhale, like he was blowing smoke. “She’s in love with you, asshole.”

Didn’t that stop him in his tracks. But he got back with the program. “Listen, she and I . . .”

At that point, he was supposed to explain the stuff about the results of his physical and how he was all