by Layla Reyne
Chris conceded and stole back into Hawes’s mouth, until other needs became pressing. As much as he loved the lithe, powerful body trapped between him and the window, loved Hawes’s cock rutting against his abs, loved every nook and cranny of Hawes’s mouth he reacquainted himself with, he loved the thought of a naked Hawes more. And this position was not conducive to making his thoughts a reality.
Hands around Hawes’s wrists, Chris brought their arms down behind Hawes’s back. Following the cue, Hawes bowed his back and thrust his chest forward, more of his weight onto Chris. “On three.”
Chris skipped one and two. “Three,” he said, and hauled them off the window. Spinning, he took two steps and put a knee to the chaise. He laid Hawes against the corner, spreading his arms across the top of the chaise and his legs half on and half off the seat cushions, wide enough for Chris to crawl between them.
Hawes nestled into the cushions and smiled. “Definitely softer than the window.”
“Wanna know what’s not soft?” Chris palmed his cock through his jeans, stretching denim across his thickening length.
Hawes’s smile morphed into a wanton growl. “Bring it to me.”
Chris nearly caved at Hawes’s desperation-soaked command. Could see himself feeding Hawes his cock, could imagine how good the rumble of his groan would feel around the tip. But not yet. “We’ll get there,” he promised, getting back to the task of undressing.
He ran his hands under Hawes’s pullover and shirt and slowly worked them up his torso, torturing with tongue and teeth every inch of skin he exposed. “When we’re done here,” he said between licks and kisses, “I want you to stay.”
“I can’t.” Hawes gasped as Chris barely breathed on a nipple. “I need to—”
“Fall asleep in my bed tonight.” Chris wanted it as much as he wanted to get his mouth around Hawes’s cock. “Fall asleep in my arms again, here in my home, with me.” Maybe even more, after the events of today. “I need that after almost losing you.” He took a nipple between his teeth, and Hawes arched his back. “After almost losing this.”
Hawes kept his arms spread across the top of the chaise, fingers digging into the cushions as his body writhed for contact. “Yes. I’ll stay.”
Chris’s chest clenched as he was reminded of the hole there that had been filled again. He amped up the torture as a thank-you, as a promise. He held his body above Hawes’s and focused all his efforts on a single point of contact, his tongue swirling around one, then the other of Hawes’s nipples. They puckered and strained like the rest of Hawes’s body. Like Chris’s to match.
Unable to resist Hawes’s “Need to feel you” pleas any longer, he made quick work of getting their shirts off. He lowered himself on top of Hawes—chest to chest, skin to skin, mouth to mouth—and lost himself in kisses, in touches, in softness. Except their cocks, which grew harder as they rutted together with increasing urgency.
Chris braced one foot on the floor and bent his other leg between Hawes’s spread legs, knee on the cushion. “The other night on the phone, I was here on this chaise.” He unbuttoned Hawes’s jeans and tugged them down with his boxers, enough to set his cock bobbing free. Chris stretched back out over Hawes, whispering hotly into his ear, “Your voice…” He wrapped a fist around Hawes’s hard length and stroked slowly. “Made me so hard, like you are now.”
“Dante…”
“Thought about you spread out just like this.” Another stroke. “Wanted to taste you again.” A swipe of his fingers over the leaking head. “Suck you down until you let go.”
Hawes keened for more, his arms slipping off the back of the chaise. Chris released his cock and grabbed each wrist, spreading them back across the cushion tops. “Keep ’em there, and hold on tight while I take you apart.”
He slid to his knees beside the chaise and yanked Hawes’s jeans and boxers the rest of the way off. Chris bent over his lap and licked a stripe up the crease of Hawes’s balls. As intended, Hawes lifted his ass off the chaise, chasing the touch, and Chris gave it to him. He shoved a hand back to tease Hawes’s taint and hole, while the other fisted the base of Hawes’s cock. His mouth swallowed him down, teasing and tasting. Sharp, irresistible, like the rest of Hawes.
“Fucking hell,” Hawes cursed. “I’m not gonna last if you keep that up.”
“And I’m not gonna last when I get my cock in your mouth.” Chris kissed down Hawes’s length as he spoke. “Gotta make sure you’re ready to go with me.” Then took him back into his mouth.
Lost in the perfect, aching hardness, in his mouth and in his own jeans, it wasn’t until Hawes shouted, “Christopher!” that Chris came back to himself. And to Hawes staring down at him with eyes that were nearly black, the blue reduced to a thin ring of icy fire. “Get your cock in me now, one way or the other.”
Chris almost came at the delicious snap of command in Hawes’s voice. Driven wild, he had to act before it was too late. He stood, stepped back, and shed his jeans and boxers. He took another step back, and Hawes opened his mouth to object, but Chris circled the chaise, stopping behind the corner were Hawes’s head was, and Hawes caught on to his fantasy.
His objection died on a groan. “Oh fuck yes.”
Chris ran a hand through Hawes’s silky top strands, tipping his head back. With his other hand, he moved one of Hawes’s off the back of the chaise to the patch of hair just above Hawes’s cock, urging him to take himself in hand. “Together,” he said.
Hawes grinned and slid his hand down, circling his cock. “Don’t think that’s gonna be a problem.”
Neither did Chris as he fisted the base of his own cock and fed it between Hawes’s parted lips. Deciding where to look became almost as hard as his cock—Hawes’s fist shuttling up and down that lovely, slick cock, or his lips stretching around Chris’s length, his cheeks hollowing out with suction.
“Christ.” Chris curled forward, tangling the fingers of his free hand with Hawes’s on top of the cushions. Hawes clutched back, hard. This wasn’t going to last long for either of them.
Hawes took him deeper each time Chris thrust forward, throat tightening around the tip as he swallowed, tongue twirling around the length and head as Chris drew back. “Oh fuck, that’s it. That’s perfect.” It was the hottest fuck Chris had ever had, and if the orgasm barreling his way was any indication, it was going to be the hardest he’d ever come too. “Hawes…” He started to pull out, but the fingers around his clenched to almost breaking.
Commanding him to stay. With him.
Chris knew exactly where to look. Knew exactly whose order to follow.
His king’s.
He thrust back into Hawes’s mouth, ecstasy trilling up his spine with Hawes’s deep, satisfied groan as they came, together.
Chapter Eleven
Chris followed the scent of coffee out from his bedroom, the condo still in shadows, the dark of night outside just starting to give way to morning. Inside, the under-cabinet lights cast a soft glow in the kitchen, and across from the island, another low light emanated from the study.
While they’d fallen asleep in the same bed, Hawes wrapped in his arms, as negotiated, Hawes had beaten him awake and was snooping around the locked study he’d picked his way into, judging by the bent wire on the kitchen island. Not that there was anything in the room that wasn’t on the flash drive Chris had already given him.
He leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb and admired the graceful, efficient motions of his lover. Dressed in his jeans and one of Chris’s tanks, Hawes looked at home here, with his feet bare, his hair tumbled, and a mug of coffee in hand. He was the first person since Izzy to invade his space—his life—so effortlessly, so comfortably. It should worry him that it was Hawes Madigan, of all people, but it was the first time in years he didn’t feel alone in his own home. And that’s what it felt like for the first time in years too—a home. The pieces all fit, even if they shouldn’t.
“You didn’t look around last night?” he asked after anot
her minute of creeping on the handsome, dangerous man.
Hawes didn’t startle, no doubt aware that Chris had been standing there, staring. “Needed the beer, and the sex.” He grinned over his shoulder, but then the smile fell as he considered the photos of Isabella’s crime scene. “Was still shook up from the almost dying.”
“You hid it well.”
“Not the first time.” He swung his gaze back to Chris. “We’re professionals.”
“We are.”
Hawes got that about him and vice versa. Maybe that’s why Hawes didn’t feel like a stranger in his home. Chris pushed off the jamb, ambled over to him, and slid an arm around his waist. “Doesn’t make it any easier, does it? Risking your life on a daily basis is still risking your life.”
Hawes set his mug on the desk, then turned into Chris, warm hand on his bare chest. The other curled around the waistband of his athletic shorts and tugged Chris closer. “You do, though. You steady things. I don’t know why…”
“You do too, for me.” Chris didn’t know why either, only knew that he needed to kiss Hawes, needed to taste him this morning, unlike the last morning they’d woken up in the same place yet on opposite sides. Chris mapped every sweet, delicious corner of his mouth while Hawes mapped every inch of Chris’s back and torso, sending ripples of heat coursing under his skin, through his veins, aimed straight for the center of his chest. When air became necessary again, Hawes rested against his chest, and Chris combed fingers through his wild morning hair. “Find anything interesting?”
“You have a lovely home.”
Chris chuckled. “For an ATF agent.”
Hawes leaned back in his arms. “I didn’t say that.”
“Didn’t have to.” Chris dropped a quick kiss on his lips, then stepped out of Hawes’s arms. He grabbed Hawes’s empty mug and headed for the kitchen to refill it for him and grab his own. “It needs some updates,” he said as he ran a hand over the countertops. Chipped in places, grout an indescribable color, the tiles themselves a nineties off-white that never looked clean even if he scrubbed them to gleaming. “But I’m not a fool. I know the goldmine I’m sitting on. Bought it fifteen years ago before prices went crazy. It’s almost doubled in value since.”
“You thinking about selling it? If you’re not here much…”
“I primarily work UC. I’m gone a lot.” He pulled down another mug. “But I’m not planning to sell anytime soon. It’s not exactly lived in, not like it used to be, but I like having a place of my own when I am here. My four walls, not my mom’s or my sister’s.”
“I understand that.” Hawes circled the adjacent dining table, eyeing the books scattered haphazardly across it. “And you have to have somewhere to keep all these.”
“I like to read.”
Hawes stepped away from the dining table and laid a hand on the hallway wall between Chris’s bedroom and the study. “That a hidden library in here? Or a panic room? There’s no door here or on the study side.”
“You didn’t try to open the door in the bedroom?”
“It seemed private.” Chris rolled his eyes, hard, and Hawes dropped his hand, chuckling. “More private than the other areas.”
Chris smiled as he filled their mugs. “It’s nothing quite so fancy.” He handed Hawes a refreshed cup. “It’s storage now, but it was a nursery.”
Hawes bobbled the mug, and Chris, hand still close by, expecting the reaction, helped him steady it. “A what?” Hawes said.
Chris hadn’t planned on telling Hawes this truth quite yet, but after yesterday, Hawes needed to know the truth, all of it, so he could understand where Chris was coming from, why he’d made the decisions he had, why losing Hawes wasn’t an option, and why solving Isabella’s death was at the top of his priority ladder. Chris grabbed his own mug, took Hawes’s hand with the other, and led him back to the reading area. He beckoned Hawes to sit on the chaise, handed him his coffee, and turned to the bookcase. He pulled the single hardcover book—Where the Wild Things Are—off the top shelf, where he’d put it back after his conversation with Mia, and carefully flipped the pages until he reached the photo tucked inside. He withdrew it and held it out to Hawes.
Perched on the end of the chaise, Hawes set the mugs on the floor and took the offered photo. He ran his finger over the kindergartner’s face and smiled, much like he did anytime he looked at Lily. He’d make an incredible father someday. “Is this your niece? She looks like you. Same dark eyes and dark hair.” He ran his thumb over the nose and laughed. “Even the nose. Did she stay with you?”
“That’s not my niece. Mia is incapable of smiling at a camera. That”—he nodded at the picture—“was my daughter, Rochelle.”
Hawes gasped. “Daughter? You have—Wait, was?”
Chris lowered himself next to Hawes and slipped the picture from his trembling fingers. “Ro would have been seventeen this coming December.” He smiled at the photo of his beaming daughter on school picture day.
“You had her in high school?”
“Well, I didn’t have her, technically.” His smile dimmed, remembering her first cry, imagining her last. “Don’t have her anymore either.”
Hawes gently squeezed his knee. “Dante…” Then squeezed tighter. “Shit, Chris, I’m sorry. That’s…”
Chris laid a hand over his, drawing Hawes’s gaze. “I like when you call me Dante.” He placed the picture of Ro on the side table, then retrieved their mugs off the floor. He handed one to Hawes, then scooted behind him into the corner of the chaise, a leg on either side of Hawes, who took the hint and repositioned himself, back to Chris’s chest.
“You remember Jennifer Petrie?” Chris asked once they were settled.
“The cheerleader from the yearbook?”
“That’s the one. Knocked her up the night of senior prom.”
“And she had Rochelle.”
Chris took a long sip of the perfectly brewed coffee and remembered those wild months of his eighteen-year-old life, wishing he’d had an IV drip of caffeine then. Jenn’s panic when she came to him with the news, his mother’s glee and support, his own fear, and then something so much more the day his daughter was born. “The reason I was so sure Holt was the traitor was because I know how he feels. To have your whole world suddenly realign and revolve around this new life. One you’d do anything to protect. That was Ro for me.”
“And Jennifer?”
“Wanted to do right by Ro, but we weren’t in love, and she had no interest in being a mom yet. She had a scholarship to Florida and a shitty family at home. She needed to get out, for her own safety and future.”
“Whereas you had your mom, dad, and sister.”
“I had the support network to make it work, like Holt has all of you. And I had a job working on bikes with my dad at the family shop and a spot at San Francisco State. I was in a better position to care for Ro.” He cleared his throat, and when that didn’t dislodge the knot there, gulped back more coffee. “She was my whole world the second she first wailed.”
Hawes twisted in his arms to look up at him. “You don’t have to…”
Chris leaned forward and nuzzled the hollow of his cheek. “You need this piece of the story.” Hawes nodded, and Chris settled back into the corner, Hawes against his chest again. “I graduated with a degree in criminal justice and became a private investigator.”
“So you really were a PI?”
He draped an arm around Hawes’s chest and squeezed. “Told you it wasn’t all a lie.” Hawes chuffed and dipped his chin to nip at Chris’s forearm. Improbably laughing, Chris left his arm there, lightly holding Hawes, enjoying the feel of him in his embrace and steeling himself for the hardest part of the story. “PI work paid well, and with some help from my parents, I bought this place. The job gave me more flexibility to be at home here, with my kid.”
“Sounds ideal.”
“It was a good setup, and the PI gig was how I met Isabella.” Hawes tensed in his arms, then relaxed when Chris tightened h
is hold, comforting them both. “I was running down a lead on a firearm when I first crossed paths with her. We worked well together—both of us getting what we needed for our respective cases—and then we went our separate ways.”
“Until something happened to Ro? You said Isabella helped you at a time when you weren’t in a good way.”
The mug began to shake in Chris’s hand, and he leaned down to set it on the floor. Righting himself, Chris found his hand captured in Hawes’s, their fingers lacing together, giving him the strength he needed to go on. “My sister had picked her daughter and Ro up from school. Drunk driver ran a red light less than a block from the house. He died, and so did…” Chris lost his words, and Hawes raised their joined hands, kissing across the knuckles until Chris could speak again. “The rest of my family was okay, but Ro didn’t make it.”
Hawes rotated so his side rested against the length of Chris’s torso, his breath gentle where it coasted over Chris’s skin. “Take your time.”
There’d never be enough time to digest that loss, all the feelings wrapped up in it. Chris carded his fingers through Hawes’s hair instead, taking comfort where he could, short-lived as it was. “You need to go,” he said after another minute. “Before it gets light out.”
“It’s fine,” Hawes replied. “Tell me the rest.”
The whip of an order underlying the gentle tone was enough of a distraction from the sorrow. Chris smiled as he cleared his throat. “I barely made it too. My whole world was gone. I was ready to join her. I used one of my connections to get hold of a gun.”
“You didn’t have one?”
“I did, but I wanted it clean. Untraceable so no one would be implicated but me. That’s what I told myself, and it was stupid. Years of therapy later, I understand what I wanted was to be stopped.”
“And that’s where Isabella came in.”
“The gun I’d bought wasn’t clean. She had it tagged for a case. I was five minutes from pulling the trigger when she walked in.” He remembered that day, would never forget it. At the end of a dark tunnel, literally and figuratively as he sat in the dark in this very room, when the tall, bossy lady with a mane of black curls and a thick New York accent came looking for him. “More like strutted in, to this very house, and rather than trying to coax or offer sympathy, she dropped a file on the floor in front of me. For a seven-year-old girl being held captive by a cult.”