by Layla Reyne
Need that was reflected in Chris’s words when they next broke for air. “I’m sure I need to be back inside you as fast as I can get there.” Chris lifted his right hand and cupped Hawes’s cheek. “As long as you’re sure too. But if you need to talk now, we will.”
Hawes muffled his strangled, bitter laugh in Chris’s palm. He was the one who’d murdered Chris’s partner, he was the one who’d lied time and again this past week, he was the one who’d shot him, and yet, Chris was here, in his bed, hard with want and handling him with care. If there was no doubt in Chris’s mind, there was certainly none in Hawes’s. He’d gotten over any doubt about where Chris’s heart lay during the night they’d shared at Chris’s place, and over any doubt about his allegiance last night when Chris had shielded him from flying bullets. Hawes’s heart and mind were in the same place—with Chris.
He kissed Chris’s palm, then reached across him to the bedside table and retrieved a condom and lube from the drawer. “I’m good with after.” Rising on his knees, he finished undressing them, and once stripped, rolled the condom down Chris’s dick. Chris shivered under him and bucked as Hawes stroked his erection, covering it in lube. Then Hawes reached behind to ready himself. “What’s easiest?” he asked on a panted breath as he worked himself open. “With your shoulder.”
Red streaked across Chris’s cheekbones as he eyed Hawes hungrily. “Ride me. Unless you need more, and then I’ll make it work.”
He would always need more, but he understood what Chris was asking. If he needed Chris to exert more control so Hawes could let go, he’d find a way. Like he’d been doing the past two weeks. Tonight, though, there was only one thing Hawes needed. Ready, he snagged Chris’s hand and brought it to his hip. “Keep me steady.”
Chris fanned his fingers over skin and bone and squeezed. Hard. “Always.”
Hawes covered the weightlessness that overwhelmed his insides by bringing his weight down on Chris, slowly sinking onto his cock. “Dante,” tumbled from his lips, and Chris groaned, his fingers digging into Hawes’s hip. Chris’s sling-trapped hand splayed on his own chest, scrabbling for purchase, and Hawes reached down to tangle their fingers together. He reached his other arm over Chris’s head, grasping the headboard, then rammed back down onto Chris’s dick.
“Fuck yeah,” Chris cursed, grip tightening in both places he held him. “Let go for me, baby.”
And Hawes did, filling himself over and over with Chris, the taste of his mouth and skin, the scent of his sweat and sex, the thick fullness inside him, deep inside him, and the lightness it brought to every other part of him. Both lost and found in the fog of lust—and love—that wrapped tightly around them.
He dragged his mouth over Chris’s scruff-covered jaw, to his ear. “I don’t just think,” he said between grunts, the speed and force of their thrusts violent almost, their orgasms near. “I know, Dante.”
Chris lifted his hand off Hawes’s hip, and Hawes cried out from the loss, until Chris brought the hand to his cheek. Handling him so gently while his cock pounded inside him, pegging his prostate with unerring accuracy. He ran a thumb over Hawes’s cheekbone, drawing his gaze. Hawes saw the same flood of emotions reflected there, then heard it in Chris’s wrecked voice. “I know too.”
And after that there was nothing left to see. Hawes’s orgasm barreled into him, blinding him to everything but the gentle hand on his face and the strong, hard body climaxing beneath him, the man who was lost in pleasure—and love—with him.
Chapter Four
“I’m not sure this is the best thing for your gunshot wound.”
Chris tightened his good arm around Hawes’s bare chest and kissed the shoulder freckle he’d been worrying with his teeth. “That’s why I’m sitting behind you”—he tapped his foot against Hawes’s at the far end of the soaking tub, splashing the shallow water—“with my bandaged shoulder wrapped in towels and my upper half out of the water.”
Hawes had left the bed to toss the condom and get them washcloths, and Chris, remembering a certain fantasy he had involving this tub, had followed him down the loft stairs to the bathroom. Approaching from behind, he’d snuck a hand over Hawes’s hip and down to his dick, teasing and tempting as he’d made his demand for a bath known. Hawes had conceded, as had Chris, allowing the turban of towels around his bandaged shoulder.
Hawes lolled his head on Chris’s other shoulder and nipped at the underside of his jaw. “You gonna do more than just tease?”
Chris trailed his hand down Hawes’s lean, chiseled torso, under the warm water, and circled Hawes’s cock, giving it a tug and relishing the quake of the body in his arms. Thanking all that was holy for the chance to be here again with Hawes Madigan. Touching, teasing, together. “Eventually,” he said. While Hawes was seemingly ready to go again, Chris’s recovering body needed more time, and his brain needed to fill in some blanks from the past twenty-four hours. One more stroke, then he withdrew his hand, chuckling when Hawes muffled a whine in his neck. “I promise,” Chris assured him, looping his arm back around Hawes’s chest, holding him lightly. “But first, we need to talk.”
“So this was a trap,” Hawes said, even as he closed his eyes and relaxed into Chris’s embrace.
Ridiculously pleased at that sign of trust, at the small victory in an otherwise raging war, Chris hid his smile in the divot of Hawes’s collarbone. He swirled his tongue in the groove, and Hawes squirmed, stretching like a cat seeking more. He spread his legs, stiff cock breaching the water’s surface, and Chris, his own dick reawakened, reconsidered whether they really needed to talk first. But then Hawes righted his gaze and tensed, seeing something Chris didn’t.
Chris drew back and nuzzled behind his ear. “What is it?”
Hawes lifted a long leg out of the water, and with his big toe, traced the tile sun framing the faucet. “This was one of the last things he remembered how to do.”
Chris didn’t have to ask who Hawes was referring to. All he had to do was look around the bathroom, at the yellow and white tiles that brightened the otherwise enclosed space. At odds with the condo’s sleek modern design, the tile work had obviously been done after Hawes had bought the place. By a master…or his apprentice; by a king…or the prince. A touch of home, of family, that Hawes had brought with him. “Papa Cal helped you lay this?”
“No, but he told me how.” Hawes inhaled sharply. “Asked about it every time I visited.” Another short, shaky breath. “He didn’t always remember who I was, but he remembered I was the one laying tile in a bathroom.” His breathing grew ragged, like before when he’d torn apart the living area.
It had torn Chris apart to wait in the loft while Hawes had let go without him. But Hawes had needed that then, and Chris would have been no help with his own anger and bum shoulder. Now, though, unwound, Chris could help cushion Hawes’s landing as he suffered the hard fall back to reality. Chris pressed his chest snugly against Hawes’s back. “Breathe with me,” he said. “In.” He inhaled, lifting his chest and relaxing his arm as Hawes’s chest expanded. “And exhale.” He deflated back to neutral, his hold steady but light.
In and out, together, until Hawes’s breathing returned to normal and he slumped back into Chris’s body. “Thank you.”
Chris kissed his temple. “Time for that talk.”
Nodding, Hawes curled his hands over Chris’s forearm, holding him there. “You saw the video?”
“Scotty brought it to us.”
A big relieved sigh. “Good, he made it to you.”
“Barely,” Chris said. “But yeah, he got there. We got him an IV before he left again. Said you’d arranged a safe house.”
“One of Gillespie’s properties down on the Peninsula.”
“Fitting bit of irony.”
Hawes tilted his head and flashed him a smirk. “I thought so.”
“Thank you for keeping your word and protecting him.”
“Thank you for trusting me,” Hawes said, before his contented expression was re
placed with a pained one. His voice was strained to match. “Fuck, Chris, my own grandmother.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t with you when you had to watch that.” Holt and Helena had taken it hard, and they weren’t the ones who’d been directly targeted, the ones Reeves had directly blamed, the ones Rose had promised to “handle.” Chris couldn’t imagine what Hawes had gone through watching that truth unfold, digesting it alone. Chris’s chest ached, and he held Hawes tighter.
“Puked,” Hawes said, “then washed my mouth out with fifty-dollar-a-glass whiskey.” He moved out of Chris’s arms but only to run a splash of hot water and wet a washcloth. “I came by here after, showered and changed, then headed to MCS.”
“Earlier, you said you weren’t sure it worked.”
“Neither of us trusts the other, and she’s so fucking cryptic. Always has been.” He scooped water into the rag and scrubbed his face. “I suspect she bought it as much as I buy that she won’t try to kill me again. Or use me as a fall guy if things go sideways.”
Chris removed the rag from his hands and set it on the ledge. He shifted Hawes between his legs, as much as the tub allowed, and curled a hand around his neck, turning his face to him. Pale skin red from the hot water and emotion, the ends of his light brown hair wet, his blue eyes damp with sorrow, Hawes looked far removed from the thirty-three-year-old king of corporate and criminal empires. “You don’t have to do this,” Chris said. “We can find another way.”
Hawes shook his head, drops of water falling from his hair onto the back of Chris’s hand. “That’s time we don’t have.” Determination shoved aside the misery in his eyes. “And I don’t want to be on the outside. Not if she’s trying to get her hands on those explosives again. I can’t risk what she might do with them. Or what she might do, period.”
“You think that’s what she’s after? The explosives?”
“She wants me to break out Amelia.” He fiddled with the towels around Chris’s shoulder. “Given their obsession with power, I’d guess the explosives are involved somehow. There’s the sheer power of them, plus the message it’ll send, if they can steal them back from the ATF.”
Chris shook his head in frustration and dismay. “Quiet power is far more frightening.”
“I agree. Case in point, Helena, who strikes silently but is deadly. We don’t need the explosives, or the guns for that matter, but that’s not how Rose sees it. I’m hoping she’s so blinded by her need for loud power that I can get to Amelia and leverage her.”
“For?”
“The truth about Isabella.” Hands flat on Chris’s chest, Hawes had to feel Chris’s galloping heart. Hawes’s was likewise working overtime, pulse hammering under Chris’s hand around his neck. “Was there anything else on the flash drive?” Hawes asked. “About her?”
“Holt was still decrypting files when I left, but he didn’t think so. There was evidence to implicate all of you, like Amelia had said, but nothing else about Izzy. You think Amelia knows more?”
Hawes shifted forward, ran another splash of hot water, then rested back against Chris’s chest. “She’s been Rose’s right hand this entire time. Maybe Papa Cal’s too. She was in that video with Rose and Reeves from years ago, and it had to be Isabella they were talking about. If she made one video, then…”
“Stands to reason she made more.” Chris snagged the washrag and soap and began skimming them over Hawes’s torso in a light wash. “I can deputize you. Transfer her into your custody.”
“I’m not supposed to be working with you.”
“And Tran would probably never go for it.”
Hawes laid a hand over his, stalling its motion. “We need to be cautious. Rose said something that made me think Tran could be dirty.”
“For real? Or was Rose playing you?”
“Either way, it’s worth looking into. And worth our caution.” He released Chris’s hand, and as Chris resumed the light scrubbing, he rested his head back on Chris’s shoulder. “We don’t know the full scope of Rose’s reach.”
“All right, I’ll get Scotty digging into it first thing. And we’ll proceed with caution. What else do you need?”
“Get a message to Holt and Helena. They need to appear to fall in line, but behind the scenes, Helena should rally the captains for when we’re ready to make a play.”
“I’ll haul them into the station for more questioning. Or make it look like that.” Chris smiled, despite the complicated maneuvers they were discussing, despite all the complications this conversation was bringing up. Because despite everything, it felt good, natural, being here at home with Hawes and strategizing with him. Like partners.
“What’s that grin about?” Hawes asked, looking up at him.
That only made him smile wider as he pushed a damp flyaway off Hawes’s forehead. “I like working with you, not against you.”
“Me too.” Hawes nipped at the underside of his jaw, but then grew quiet. His hard swallow echoed in the silence, and Chris cuffed his neck in comfort, as if he could steady the words for Hawes, make them come easier. They did, after a moment. “There’s something else,” he said. “I need you to help me minimize collateral damage. That’s off the table for me now.”
No, there was no easier way to deliver those words. The pain they brought was evidenced in Hawes’s strangled voice and in the way Chris’s insides knotted in sympathy. “Hawes…”
Blue eyes blinked up at him, pleading. “Help me make it so it doesn’t reach the table at all. I have to be able to come back from this.”
Chris drew up his left knee, forcing Hawes to turn into his chest and allowing Chris to wrap his right arm more fully around him, nestling him in. He dipped his chin and rested his forehead against Hawes’s. “No matter what, I will wait for you on the other side of the fog.”
“Why?” Hawes whispered against his lips. “I killed your partner.”
Chris opened his mouth to say what had been swirling in his head during the strike at MCS, and later, what had crystallized as he’d lain there in that hospital room.
But Hawes beat him to it. “We have to talk about that too,” he said, starting to draw back. “Until last night, I thought you were going to kill me.”
Chris halted his retreat, hand palming the side of his face and drawing him back in. “I know you.” He kissed one sharp cheekbone. “I know you love your family, all of them, even the ones who betrayed you.” Kissed the other. “I know what you are and what you want your organization to be.” Kissed the crease that formed between his brows. “You could have pulled that trigger against me the morning I revealed myself, but you didn’t.” Kissed the tip of his nose, and then his lips, lightly. “You wouldn’t, just like I know, given the choice, you wouldn’t have killed Isabella that night either.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t—”
“I know now you didn’t mean to kill her.”
Hawes covered his hand with his own, leaning back enough to lock their gazes. “I want justice for her too. Everything I’ve done since that night has been about righting that wrong.”
“I know that.” Chris slipped his hand out and kissed Hawes’s palm. “I’m sorry I almost destroyed your family to figure that out.”
“We were all played. Everything I did… It wasn’t enough.” He closed his eyes, defeat stealing over his features again.
Chris could commiserate. The same weariness infused his bones from driving himself into the ground, and driving his family away, these past three years. Hell, the past ten. But over the past couple of weeks, he’d seen the path back from that dark place to a renewed closeness with his family and a home with the man in his arms. If they were going to get there, though, he needed to resurrect the man who’d time and again walked into a trap and turned it around on the fool who’d thought him weak. The strongest man Chris had ever met, who’d turned Chris’s world upside down, for the better.
His king.
“Listen to me, Madigan.” He gritted through the pain of pulling his arm o
ut of the towel sling, because dammit, he needed two hands for this. He framed Hawes’s face, holding his gaze, his attention, their world, steady. “The organization needs you. Your family needs you. I fucking need you.”
“Why?” Hawes choked out.
“Because I don’t just think I’m falling for you. I fell, baby, the minute I walked into Danko and saw you across the room, your head held high like you fucking owned the place. The second you called me Mr. Perry.” He gave him a little shake for emphasis. “I know.”
Hawes closed his eyes, and Chris’s heart skipped a beat, until they opened again, full of resolve. Of that same confidence he’d fallen for. “I fell for you that night I walked into my condo and saw the box of mooncakes. You got it. You got me. I know too.”
“Then we’ll get her,” Chris said, heart racing now, with love and hope for the future. “And we’ll get justice for Isabella, for our families, and for us.”
“And then?”
“And then we’ll rebuild the empire, by your rules, better and stronger than ever before. Together.”
The king smiled—wicked, deadly, and fucking glorious.
Chapter Five
Chris grabbed a cold pack out of his mom’s freezer and laid it atop the assortment of foodstuffs he’d tossed into the cooler. Snacks for Mia and Marco on the drive up, everything his mom and sister needed to make the family lasagna once they reached their destination, and a bottle of wine for all the trouble Chris was causing them.
He zipped up the cooler and carried it to the dining table, where Mia glanced up from her e-reader. “Is this really necessary?” Despite her griping, Chris’s niece was ready to go, her bookbag and duffel on the floor by her feet, while the rest of the family was still upstairs packing.
“Are you really complaining about a week in Tahoe?”