Mischief (Circuit Book 2)

by Lacey Dailey

  “This door doesn’t have a lock on it,” I tsk-ed.

  His brows raised. “Shame.”

  “Did you come here to get me fired? Or–" Watching him slide back onto his stomach, I wasn’t sure I even cared. The picture that met me would’ve been worth unemployment. His stark-naked ass was displayed and spread out like a million-dollar prize. Because I was a bit of a deviant, I let my mind forget this was my place of work, and bent at the waist, sinking my teeth into his perfectly round globes.

  He purred and shifted to his knees, shoving his ass back into my face. I was a man with very little restraint when it came to Brett Maddison. After the sleepy sex we had last night, and the needy man who showed up starkers at my work, I was hanging on by a fucking thread. I blew out a rough breath, making my lips flap. Pressing my palm to the base of his spine, I pushed and forced him to collapse back down to his stomach. The table legs screamed with the motion. Before he could protest, I dove next to him and poked the tip of my nose into his cheek in an attempt to seek out his lips.

  Dragging his face from the cushion, our lips met in a lazy kiss. A pleasant hum sounded off in the base of my throat. My brain fizzled. When his whimper floated down my mouth, I felt the kiss for what it was. A plea.

  “Ace.” His voice broke low on the word. Clasping my neck, I felt the tremble in his hands. Like a drunk who’d just fallen off the wagon.

  He kissed me again, unmoving. We just froze there for a moment. My body awkwardly bent in half while he was spread out naked as the day he was born. He sighed but made no moves to deepen the kiss. It was just my lips against his lips. Cushion to cushion.

  “I love you,” He murmured.

  Fuck if my heart didn’t detonate with those words. “I love you too, boo. You okay?”

  “Nah. Just, uhm.” His throat sounded like gravel crunching beneath tires. “Just had an odd day. Thought maybe seeing you would relax me.”

  “Well, I’m flattered.” I scooped the towel off the ground. Covering him back up, I let my fingernails skim his thigh. He made a noise and melted into the table. “Do you really want a massage?”

  “I just want your hands on me.” The rasp in his voice cut him wide open and exposed him. He was desperate. Desperate for me to take him out of his own head for a while.

  Yesterday had been a taxing day. It was the only time I could ever remember leaving Circuit half asleep. Brett and I practically had to drag each other up the stairs of our building. We were down in Circuit land until almost four in the morning. The progress we made was minimal. If there was somebody else in that car, their identity remained unknown. As far as we could find, nobody bothered to test the blood in the car because they all assumed it belonged to Kade. Since there were no signs or blood patterns that suggested somebody made a run for it, I didn’t blame them. But my man said he had a hunch, so we’ll keep looking down that dark path until something leads us elsewhere.

  I rained a flurry of kisses across his shoulder blades, reaching for the lavender oil I had on a shelf. It dripped from my hands as I warmed it, pressing my palms to his back. He groaned. A hand flew up and gripped the bottom of my smock in a vise-like grip. “Keep doing that.”

  “Man, I better get one hell of a tip.”

  “Baby, I came with something really special to give you.”

  I swatted his ass. It jiggled beneath the towel. “You are such a flirt.”

  “Comes naturally when I have such a hot guy to flirt with.”

  Lord Almighty, my heart nor my dick was safe around this man. “Brett Maddison, did you come here and talk me up to my receptionist so you could flirt with me? Cause if you’re looking to get laid, it is absolutely working.”

  “I actually came here to tell you something.” I heard the smile in his laugh. “And then I saw you looking hot in that smock and got stupid.”

  I couldn’t love him any harder. “You make me stupid too.” I pushed my thumbs into the base of his neck. “What’d you want to tell me?”

  “I missed you the second you left.”

  Turned out, I could love him harder. I loved him harder with each breath he took. “I missed you too.”

  “Ace, this seriously feels amazing. I’m not just saying that because I love you, I’m saying it because you’re damn good at your job.”

  My chest puffed up a little. I felt the tips of my ears get hot and blood warming my cheeks. All areas of my skin started to flush. I didn’t realize it until he uttered the words, but I wanted him to feel that way. I yearned for him to be proud of me on a level outside of Mischief.

  “Thank you.” I made my way down the center of his back, each of his pleased noises sending me into a frenzy. “It was important to have something I loved beside Mischief, ya know?”

  “Of course. And if you think I didn’t notice all those certifications hanging on the wall, you’re wrong. I’m proud of you, A. I hope I’m half as good at my career as you are at yours.”

  He grunted when I dug my palm into his lower back. Christ, he was all knotted up. But with the stress he was under, I would’ve been more surprised if he wasn’t. “You’ll be just as good, if not better.”

  “You just want to see me in my uniform.”

  “Counting down the days,” I teased.

  “It’s going to be a while yet.” He sounded a bit forlorn. “I wish I would’ve had the balls to do this a long time ago. I’m itching to do this, A. I want it so bad the wait is going to kill me.”

  I filled my palm with more oil. Instead of moving to the other side of the table, I just draped my body across his. Something I’d never do with another client. He made a noise at the contact. “How much longer until your written exam?”

  “Two weeks. When I pass that, I move on to the agility test.”

  “Hot damn.” I whistled. “Things will move fast after that.”

  “Thank hell,” he grumbled. “Ace, shit. The fuck are you doing back there?”

  “Brett, your muscles are one big ball of lumps. I thought I did a better job of relaxing you at night.”

  He snorted. “I’ve been a little overwhelmed. We all can’t be crime fighting hackers in our adult lives. Some of us are just average.”

  “You, Brett Maddison, are not average.” I leaned forward and kissed the side of his head. “And I’ve been hacking since I was twelve.”

  I felt him balk beneath my palms. “Twelve? Jesus, Ace!”

  “Uh.” I laughed sheepishly. “Wren and I sort of tried to hack into a police database after two hours of reading a hacking book. We thought we were pros. It was a rude ass awakening when the cops showed up on his doorstep.”

  “Why am I not even surprised?” Amusement flooded his tone. “What the hell did you need in a police database?”

  The room went quiet. The enormous hole that tore into my chest over a decade ago made itself known. “My father,” I said, low. Brett scrambled and tried to sit up. I held him down. “After he left, my mother took pity on me and all the unaddressed letters I was dropping in the mailbox for him. She told me he was in jail so I could have an answer. It completely backfired on her. When she refused to let me visit him, I took matters into my own hands.”

  “Ace.” Through his back, I felt his heart thumping against his skin. “You started hacking to find your dad?”

  Closing my eyes, I moved my hands as I worked. The feel of his skin and sounds of his breath made it easier to talk about. “I guess after he left, I wasn’t sure how to feel. I don’t think I was really able to grasp what being abandoned meant. It didn’t kick in that he wouldn’t be there for the first day of high school or to teach me how to drive until a few months after he left. Wren and I didn’t go to a huge public school like you did. Everybody at school knew, and I became the kid whose dad walked out on him. I was glad when I came out and my label switched to the gay kid.”

  “Ace Jackson, you are so much more than either of those things.” The rawness in his voice told me he meant those words with every fiber of his being. />
  “I was completely fixated on finding him for almost a whole year. It wasn’t until my mother finally came out and said he left did I eventually get really angry. God, Brett. I was so fucking pissed. He was my father. He made the decision to help bring me into this world and take responsibility for me. And then what? He abandoned his obligation because he had other plans?”

  “You had every right to feel that way.”

  “I know.” I moved my hands down to his calves and squeezed at the muscles, my fingers knowing exactly what to do. A blessing in disguise. My brain was too preoccupied to tell them what to do at the moment. “My mom reminded me daily my anger was justified. But it was weird because she was never angry.”

  “No?”

  “No. She always talked about him in a light way, calling him by his first name like he wasn’t totally dead to us. Not once in the decade we spent without my father did she ever talk about him with anger or disgust laced in her voice.”

  For the first year or so, she was heartbroken. She tried to mask it but I knew better. I heard the way she’d cry at night in the room they were supposed to share and noticed the way she wore his T-shirts around the house like she was mourning the loss of him. And I don’t know, maybe she was, but how could you mourn a man who left you alone with two kids and a mountain of debt? It made little sense.

  I never mourned my father. Never allowed myself to feel anything but fury and rage when my mother insisted he loved me.

  “Men who love their sons don't leave them behind, Brett. That's what I had to say daily in order to remind myself he was never coming back.” An unrecognizable sound ripped from my throat.

  He bolted off the table and yanked me into his arms before I took my next breath. I couldn’t have prevented it that time even if I tried. The table rocked beneath his vigor and the towel got twisted in his lap. He was sitting there naked, his dick covered only by a thin towel. He gave no shits as he held me, oil smearing all over us both.

  I rested my chin on his shoulder, tightening my arms around his glistening back. “The hacking started because of him. When I realized I couldn’t answer my own question, I grew consumed with the need to answer other people’s questions. There was this whole section on hacktivism in one of the books Wren and I bought. I was blown away. Somewhere along the line, I learned the good I could do and found Mischief lingering inside me. Now, I have no idea who’d I be without it.” I let out a snort. “Guess that’s one good thing my father did for me.”

  “No.” He wrenched me away from his chest and held my shoulders. His fingers dug into my skin and he pierced me with a look so intense, I rocked backward on my heels. “Do not give that man credit for who you became. You are you because of what you did and what you believed in. You are amazing all on your own, Ace Jackson. The world is better each day because of choices you made. Not the ones he did.” The truth that lingered in his words was unwavering. His strength was steady and his promise firm.

  “Thank you.” I nuzzled my face into his touch and prayed he wouldn’t abandon me. That’s a loss I’d never survive. “I love you.”

  “I love you too, A. You and me until the end, yeah?” He grasped my chin between his thumb and forefinger. “There is not a place on earth that is better than being right next to you.”

  He fucking destroyed me. His words were catastrophic to my heart. It was swelling to the point of combustion, and I was leery on just how much more of Brett Maddison it could take. I rubbed the warmth in my chest and forced it to calm down. It had a lifetime of Brett-isms to make it through.

  I cursed at the wetness in my eyes and tried to look away. He held me firm and kissed me like he only had seconds left to live.

  The pull between us was palpable. Almost tangible. Like you could reach your hand out and wrap your fingers around the strings that held us together.

  “We never have to talk about him again,” he swore.

  “With you? It wasn’t awful. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t great, but it wasn’t awful.”

  “Hmm. You must really love me.”

  “I must.” I kissed him again. “Thank God I made you quit college so you could show up here bored today.”

  He reached around my body and pinched my ass. It made me squeal like a little bitch.

  He chuckled. “You know I didn’t have to come here today for you to talk about this, right? Whenever you want, I’m all ears.”

  “My daddy issues will not be a regular topic of conversation.”

  He nodded, accepting that easily. “Noted.”

  I rubbed my chin. “Shit, B. I don’t even think I’ve said his name out loud in over ten years.”

  If Brett found that astonishing or borderline crazy, he didn’t show it. He just offered his ears. “Wanna start now?”

  I took Brett’s hands for support and blurted the name before I got pissed at the way it felt in my head. “Dominic.”

  Brett kissed the tops of both my hands. “You can say that as much or as little as you want.”

  Maybe it was his easy attitude toward this moment or maybe it was just him in general, but before I could think better of it, I pulled my phone from a pocket inside my smock and handed it to Brett.

  “There’s a picture of him on there. It’s the first one.”

  Brett’s eyes widened in shock. Thank hell he didn’t ask me why it was there. I didn’t want to admit just yet that there were moments that I missed him. Moments I wondered what it would be like if he were still here. What he’d think of the man I’d become and the one I’d chosen to give my love to.

  The fact was, my dad was amazing for the years he was present. He went to every single little league game and watched me strike out, played dress-up with my sister, doted on my mom the perfect amount. He was the type of dad that came straight out of a Hallmark movie. Picture perfect.

  Until he just wasn’t.

  Brett’s thumb moved across the screen. I took a step back while he pulled up the picture and it took over my phone screen. I held my breath, waiting for whatever reaction he’d have.

  I watched his cheeks lift with a smile. “A, you were one cute ass kid. How old were you here?”

  “Five.” That picture was taken at my fifth birthday party. I wanted a dinosaur theme. Halfway through the party, my dad surprised me with a stuffed dinosaur taller than me.

  “So damn cute,” he mused. And then his eyes drifted and he went still. “Wow. Ace, just, wow.”

  “I know. Bizarre, right?”

  I knew what he would say but the words struck me like a fist to the jaw, anyway. “You could be–"

  “His twin.” I finished, nodding. The older I got, the more of him I saw in myself when I looked in the mirror every morning. Our features were almost exact. “For a while, I thought I should be pissed I look like a carbon copy of him. But I guess if this is the only thing I have of him, I’ll keep it.”

  “Ah, baby.” He locked the phone and set it aside. “I’m sorry.”

  “At least he was good-looking.” I offered up a smile.

  Brett chuckled warmly and stood up, kissing me. “You are a million times hotter, but yeah, you do look just like him.”

  His words sent a shiver down my spine. Awareness stung me in the back of the neck. I wasn’t sure where it came from but I didn't like it.

  Not one bit.

  19

  Brett

  My sister was a loon. Sometimes, I gawked at her and wondered how the hell we were even related. Good God, there was so much pink covering her body, I felt like I needed a pair of sunglasses just to look at her. She was standing in our parent’s kitchen, humming to herself, her hips swaying to the sound as she used an ice cream scoop to dish cookie batter from a massive bowl and plop the little chocolate filled mounds on a cookie sheet.

  “What in God’s name are you wearing?”

  She jumped. The ice cream scoop went flying across the kitchen. Some time ago, an outburst like that would’ve sent her into a downward spiral. She would’ve
been in the corner, in the fetal position, fighting off visions of her past. Now, her eyes punctured my chest with a dagger and she growled at me.

  It was cute.

  “Brett Daniel Maddison! What the actual hell? Go pick up that ice cream scoop and rinse it off!”

  “Not until you tell me what you’re wearing.”

  She looked down at her outfit and frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Sage, you are dressed like a human Princess Peach.”

  There was not even an ounce of me that was exaggerating. She had on a light pink dress fit with white tights and little white shoes. There was a fucking crown on the top of her head and blue earrings in her ears. After all she went through, I could cut her a break on the bizarre shit she did. But dressing up like the most hated video game character of all time was skirting close to the edge of koo-koo.

  “Wren bought this outfit for me.”

  Of fucking course he did.

  “For a costume party?”

  “No, Brett!” She huffed, blowing a lock of hair from her pale face. “For fun, okay? I had a shit week at school last week so he bought it for me to make me laugh.” She did a little spin with a smirk on her thin lips. “I don’t think he expected me to wear it in public though. So, the joke’s on him.”

  The spark of mischief in her eyes was so unlike her. It was pretty perfect that all it took was dressing up like a video game character to brighten her day. But whatever happened on campus still annoyed me. I stomped across the tile floor and snatched the ice cream scoop off the ground, rinsing it off aggressively before thrusting it at her. “Has someone been fucking with you at school?”

  She blinked. “What? No.” She used the tips of her fingers to wipe away the drops of water I’d just dotted her with and slid the scoop from my grasp. “I’m just having a hard time in Spanish.”

  “Oh. Cool then.” I nodded in approval and opened the refrigerator. “You just let me know. I’ll go down there and raise some hell.”