The Black Dagger Brotherhood_ An Insider's Guide - J. R. Ward [133]
Phury left Fritz to keep tidying up Wrath’s study. It was just as well the king wasn’t there. The head of the Brotherhood should get a report on what went down from a Brother.
As he came up to his room, Cormia was standing in the hallway, hand at her throat, looking as if she were waiting for him. Or maybe he just hoped that was the case.
“Your grace,” she said with a bow.
He was too tired to correct her on her formality. “Hey.”
As he went into his room he left the door open, because he never wanted her to feel as if she couldn’t talk to him, no matter how exhausted he was. He figured if she had something to say she’d follow him, and if she didn’t she’d go on to her room.
He went around and sat down on his bed, reaching for his gold lighter and a blunt before his weight had settled on his ass. He lit up, thinking that after a night like tonight there was no way in hell he was going to cut back on the red smoke. This was exactly why he needed the stuff.
As that first draw went down into his lungs, Cormia appeared in his doorway. “Your grace?”
He looked down at the blunt, focusing on the glowing orange tip. It was better, safer, to keep his eyes off her slim body in that long flowing robe. “Yes?”
“Bella is well. Jane says so. I thought you’d want to know.”
Now Phury glanced over his shoulder at her. “Thank you.”
“I prayed for her.”
He exhaled. “You did?”
“It was right and proper to do so. She is . . . lovely.”
“You’re a very kind person, Cormia.” He went back to staring at the hand-rolled, thinking that he was raw tonight. Absolutely wild on the inside, and the inhaling wasn’t helping much. “Very kind.”
When his stomach growled, she murmured, “May I make you something to eat, your grace?”
Even though his stomach rumbled again, as if it were thrilled with the prospect, he said, “I’m okay, but thank you.”
“As you wish. Sleep well.”
“You, too.” Just as the door was shutting, he called out, “Cormia?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you again. For praying for Bella.”
She made some kind of noncommittal noise, and the door clicked into place.
Even though he needed a shower, he slid his legs up onto the mattress and leaned back into the pillows. As he smoked, he was relieved as his shoulders gradually loosened and his thigh muscles relaxed and his hands released from the claws they’d turned into.
Closing his eyes, he let himself drift along, and images played on the backs of his lids, quickly at first, slowing as they continued. He saw the bodies in the clinic and the fight that happened and the rapid evac. Then he was back here looking for Wrath—
A picture of Cormia bending down over the roses barged into his brain.
With a curse he rolled up another chub, lit it, and settled back against the pillows.
Man, she had been so beautiful in that reflected light on the terrace.
And he thought of her standing in the hallway just now, her robing wrapped around her such that it formed a V between her breasts.
In a hot flash of insanity, he fantasized that instead of letting her walk out of his room, he’d taken her hand and drawn her farther inside. He pictured himself tugging her gently over to his bed and laying her down where he was now. Her hair would be all over the pillowcases in gold strands, and her mouth would be parted just as it had been in the movie theater when he’d approached her.
Of course, he’d have to take a shower first. Naturally. There was no way he’d expect her to put up with a male who’d not only been humping boxes of bandages for a couple of hours, but had also been in a fistfight with a lesser.
Yada, yada, yada . . . fast-forward through him scrubbing down under