Lover Unleashed - J. R. Ward [29]
Especially if said male was banging someone else. All day long. Every single day.
Qhuinn marched over to the bar. “Herradura. Double. And make it the Selección Suprema.”
The woman’s eyes heated up behind her heavy liner and fake lashes. “You starting a tab?”
“Yeah.” And going by the way she ran her hand down her tight stomach and over her hip, clearly he could have ordered a shot of her as well.
When he held out his black AmEx, she breast-iculated wildly to accept the damn thing, bending over so far she might as well have been trying to pick a swizzle stick off the floor with her nipples.
“I’ll be right back with your drink.”
What a surprise. “Great.”
As she hipped her way off, she was so wasting her time: not at all what he was looking for tonight—not even close. Wrong sex, for one thing. And he wasn’t going for anything dark haired. Matter of fact, he couldn’t believe what he wanted.
Being color-blind had its limitations, but when you only wore black and worked at night, it wasn’t a big deal most of the time. Besides, his mismatched eyes were so acute and sensitive to variants of gray that he actually perceived “colors”—it was all about the gradient. For example, he knew who the blondes in the club were. Knew the difference between the brunettes and the black-hairs. And yeah, he might misread it if one of the fidiots had gotten a whacked-out dye job, but even then, he could usually tell something was up because the skin tone never looked right.
“Here you go,” the bartender said.
Qhuinn reached over, picked up the shot glass, downed the tequila, and put the empty back on the bar. “Let’s try that a couple more times.”
“Right away.” She flashed her double-Ds again, no doubt hoping he’d do a grab. “You’re my number one customer. ’Cuz clearly you can handle the juice.”
Uh-huh. Right. Like the ability to gullet up four ounces of liquor on a oner was a BFD. God, the idea someone with that value system was allowed to vote made him want to look for that sheet of glass again.
Humans were pathetic.
Although, as he turned back to look at the crowd, he thought maybe dialing down the attitude might be a good call. He was pretty fucking pathetic himself tonight. Especially as he caught sight of two men off in a corner, the pair of them separated only by the leathers they were wearing. Naturally, one was blond. Just like his cousin was. So naturally, hypotheticals of Blay with Saxton played through his inner polo field, marking up his proverbial grass with hoofprints and horseshit.
Except they weren’t hypotheticals, were they: At the end of every night, as the table at the Brotherhood’s mansion broke up after Last Meal and people went off to do their thing, Blay and Saxton always discreetly headed for the grand staircase and disappeared down the upstairs hall to their bedrooms.
They never held hands. Never kissed in front of anyone. And there were no covert hot glances, either. But then again, Blay was a gentleman. And Saxton the Classy Slut put on a good show.
His cousin was a straight-up whore—
No, he is not, a small voice pointed out. You just hate him because he’s balling your boy.
“He is not my boy.”
“What did you say?”
Qhuinn shot a glare at the kibitzer—and then pulled back on the hard-ass. Bingo, he thought.
Standing next to him was a human male, about six feet-ish tall with great hair, a good face, and very nice lips. Clothes were not totally Gothed out, but he had some chains on his hip and a couple of hoops in one of his ears. But it was the hair color that really did it.
“I was talking to myself,” Qhuinn murmured.
“Ah. I do that a lot.” The smile was brief and then the guy went back to nursing his . . .
“What are you drinking?” Qhuinn asked.
A half-empty glass was held up. “Vodka-’n’-tonic. I can’t stand the fruity shit.”
“Neither can I. I’m tequila. Straight up.”
“Patrón?”
“Never. I’m HD.”
“Ah.” The guy pivoted around and stared ahead at the crowd. “You like the real stuff.”
“Yup.”
Qhuinn wanted to ask