Page 93 of Lover Forbidden
“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 thedoggenhad 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 hisdoggenhad 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 wholeahstrux nohtrumshit 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 thedoggen’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—”
