“Not this time,” Kye stated firmly, reaching behind Hunter’s head and pulling him closer. He didn’t crush their mouths together, choosing instead to hover mere centimeters away. “Tonight, I’m in charge. And if you can’t handle that, you should tell me to leave right now.”
Hunter didn’t say a word, so Kye took that as his agreement and crushed their mouths together.
A firestorm ignited between them, emotional chaos ensuing just as it always did. Hunter would never admit he wanted Kye, but Kye knew different. The man couldn’t stay away. No matter how hard he tried, as long as Kye continued to come back, Hunter would always let him in.
He had a surprise in store for Hunter. Tonight was the last night. Kye was tired of being this man’s sexual punching bag. He was tired of being used. But he wasn’t above taking what he wanted one more time before he walked away.
While their tongues dueled, Kye worked Hunter’s jeans open, inching toward him until Hunter was pressed up against the kitchen counter. When he managed to free Hunter’s cock, Kye dropped to his knees. He stared up at the man as he engulfed the thick shaft in his mouth, sucking and stroking, enjoying the way Hunter’s eyes heated and his moans became louder.
“Fuck,” Hunter growled, thrusting his hand into Kye’s hair. “Suck me.” He pumped his hips forward. “Suck me just like that.”
He did, but not for long. No way was he allowing Hunter to finish in his mouth. Considering the situation, he wouldn’t put it past Hunter to kick him to the curb before he ever got his. And Kye was going to get his tonight.
After jerking Hunter’s jeans down to the floor, Kye stood as he freed his own cock. “Turn around.”
Hunter glared at him for a few seconds but finally turned, placing his palms flat against the granite.
“Don’t move.”
Kye went to the bedroom to retrieve the lube. When he turned back around, he found Hunter standing in the bedroom doorway.
“I told you not to move,” Kye grumbled.
“Fuck you,” Hunter countered. “If you wanna fuck me, you can do it right here. Right now.”
They stared at one another.
“That is your plan, right, Kye? You came over here to punish me the way you think I’m punishing you?”
Kye motioned toward the bed and Hunter walked over. He didn’t lie down, instead planting his hands on the mattress. It was obvious he was going to push Kye to the breaking point. But that had always been Hunter’s way. He never gave in, never gave up complete control.
“You want it like that? Fine.”
In a rush, Kye discarded the rest of his clothes, then stepped up behind Hunter. The man didn’t move, obviously waiting for Kye to fuck him.
Too bad.
Kye had other plans.
He dropped to his knees behind Hunter, gripping Hunter’s ass cheeks before spreading him wide and thrusting his tongue into his ass.
Hunter moaned as he’d expected.
“Kye…” It sounded like a warning.
Hunter began pressing back against him while Kye rimmed his asshole, showing the man just how good it could be. It was always fast and dirty between the two of them. It wasn’t often that they engaged in lengthy foreplay. Hunter never had enough patience for that.
Kye reached between Hunter’s legs and cupped his balls, kneading them firmly while he tongue-fucked his ass. He didn’t stop until Hunter was bucking against him, begging for him to fuck him.
It took tremendous effort to get to his feet, his body vibrating with urgency, but he managed. Seconds later, he had rolled on a condom and lubed his dick. The next thing he knew, he was impaling Hunter, pulling the man’s hips back, thrusting in deep and hard.
Rarely did Hunter bottom for him, but Kye knew the man enjoyed it. Unfortunately, Hunter was usually all about control, but not tonight.
Not ever again.
Kye was tired of this game. He was tired of being Hunter’s bitch. He might care for the asshole, but he was no longer going to only take what Hunter was willing to give.
“You like that?” Kye asked, his fingers digging into the flesh of Hunter’s hips. “You like feeling my cock filling your ass?”
Hunter didn’t speak, but he groaned his approval, rocking against Kye.
He wanted to punish Hunter for how he treated him, but Kye found it more difficult than he’d anticipated. He cared for this man. Much more than he would ever willingly admit. Walking away wasn’t going to be easy, but it was necessary.
“You better come for me, Hunter,” Kye demanded as he pounded his ass. “It’s gonna be the last fucking time.”
For a second, Hunter seemed to lose his rhythm, but Kye pretended not to notice. He’d obviously surprised the man with that revelation.
Reaching up, he wrapped his hand around Hunter’s neck, holding him in place. He didn’t choke him but applied enough pressure that Hunter knew exactly who was in charge. He pounded his ass, fucking in deep and hard, not holding back, even as his orgasm threatened to take his fucking head off.
“Fuck…” Hunter growled. “Kye…I’m…”
“Come for me,” Kye insisted. “Then I’m gonna come in your ass.”
That seemed to push Hunter over the edge, because he roared his release, his ass squeezing Kye’s dick until he couldn’t hold back. He came in a rush, swallowing the sound, not wanting to give Hunter the satisfaction of knowing just how much Kye needed this.
Several minutes later, after he’d cleaned up in the bathroom, Kye was once again dressed and walking out Hunter’s front door.
He refused to look back.
Even when Hunter called out his name.
FIVE
Four months later, June
“SO, WHAT DO YOU THINK?” Conner asked when he joined Hunter behind the firing line.
Hunter had been standing there watching their new recruits, testing what he’d been drilling into them for the past four months.
“A few have some potential,” he admitted, glancing over at his brother. “But not all of them.”
Conner grinned. “Well, good news is that Claire’s chomping at the bit to take a couple of them.”
“Which ones?” he asked, turning his attention to the guy at the end. No matter how hard Hunter worked with him, the kid couldn’t aim to save his life. Twice he’d shot the damn target to his left rather than his own. If they gave him a gun and sent him out into the field, someone was going to get killed. Probably one of the good guys.
“She mentioned Jake Davis and Nate Thomas.”
Hunter looked at Conner. His brother was grinning from ear to ear.
“The two Alex insisted go out into the field?”
“Those’d be the ones.”
“Not happenin’. Claire will have to find someone else.” No way was he going to go back on the promise RT had made to Alex McDermott, the former owner of CISS. The man had been adamant that Nate and Jake were to be kept on as official agents, not relegated to some desk job manning home security monitors. Not to mention, Jake and Nate were the only two who actually showed any promise whatsoever.
“All right, fine,” Conner conceded. “But I think we should split them up. Put ’em with experienced agents for a while.”
“I agree.” There was something going on between Nate and Jake. Hunter wasn’t privy to their personal history, but he got the sense there had been a possible relationship there. Whatever it was didn’t seem to be going on anymore from what he could tell. “You have suggestions on who?”
“Nah. Don’t care enough.”
Of course he didn’t. “I was thinkin’ we’d put Nate with Deck and Jake with Clay.”
“Works. Both need a partner to keep ’em in line.”
Plus, Hunter knew Decker Bromwell had been spending too much damn time in the office, sniffing around Kira Trexler, RT’s cousin. It had actually been RT’s suggestion to pair Deck with someone to get his ass out of the office for a while.
When Conner didn’t sneak away, Hunter de
cided to ask a question of his own.
“You get any new information on that case I asked you to look into?”
“I’ve got a couple of leads.” Conner peered over at him. “Not easy dredging up information about a decade-old cold case.”
No, Hunter didn’t figure it was. Hence the reason he’d asked Conner to look into it.
“Toby Sterling,” Conner said. “That’s Kye’s brother, right?”
“Yeah.”
Conner was quiet for a moment, but then his brother’s mouth opened and stupid fell out.
“You heard from Kye?”
Hunter cut his eyes to his brother, curious as to why he’d asked that question. He hadn’t heard from Kye in four months. Not since the night Kye came over and fucked him senseless. The next day, Hunter had learned that Kye turned in his notice and disappeared off the face of the earth. The same day RT had informed him that Max had located Dani and was keeping her in a secure location until they could get a handle on the threat to their family.
Finding out Dani was safe had been a relief. He couldn’t say the same for knowing Kye had left.
It had bothered him at first, but he’d managed to forget about him in the past few months.
Okay, that was a big fucking lie. He was trying his damnedest to forget about Kye, but it wasn’t working. Still, he was glad Kye had been the one to walk away. They had both known that what they had wouldn’t last. Hunter wasn’t the type to settle down. He’d tried that once, but it hadn’t worked out. No sense in trying again.
In an effort to clear his own conscience, Hunter had decided to look into Kye’s brother’s murder. He figured if he could bring justice to the Sterling family, perhaps he could ease his own guilt. Whether it would work was yet to be seen.
“Why would I hear from him?”
Conner shrugged. “Just thought I’d ask. I’m headin’ back to the office. Need anything before I go?”
“Nope.” Hunter didn’t need anything from anyone. He was content to stand right here and watch these toddlers try to learn how to shoot.
Yeah. That was another fucking lie.
Seemed he was getting pretty damn good at them these days.
DANI FINGERED THE GUN RESTING in her lap beneath the table. It had become an extension of her over these past few months, and right now, it was the only thing that offered her a relative sense of comfort. She had never been fond of firearms, but she wasn’t naïve enough to believe it wouldn’t come in handy in a pinch.
Keep your head down; don’t look at him.
Him being the blond Adonis currently doing push-ups not twenty yards from where she sat on the balcony of the tiny, in-need-of-updating condo she’d come to call home these past four days.
Now that she thought about it, four seemed to be her magic number. Four days she’d been there. Fourth time she’d seen the same guy, doing the same thing, in the exact same spot.
She pretended to be interested in the paperback sitting in front of her. Truth was, she couldn’t recall a single thing about the book and she’d been attempting to read it for…you guessed it. Four days.
Keeping her head tilted downward, she lifted her eyes to see what the blond guy was doing.
Still doing push-ups and clearly showing off those super-sized arms of his.
The first time she’d noticed Adonis and his arms, she would’ve sworn he’d been looking right at her. Not that it surprised her. He’d taken up residence on the long, wooden walkway that jutted out from the parking level of the two condos—hers and his. The larger deck that extended from it seemed like the perfect place for him to do his daily exercise, which he was doing right now. And it just happened to be in her sight line to the ocean.
Look away, girl. Just look away.
Yeah. She had a hard time doing that.
It seemed a relatively normal thing for a handsome, well-built guy to do. Not totally out of the norm, she figured. Except, at three o’clock in the afternoon in the middle of June, when the temps were hovering in the third-level-of-hell range, Dani wasn’t sure how he could stand it. Despite the clouds that had moved in, it was still hot. And the strong breeze blowing over the Gulf of Mexico wasn’t doing a damn thing to cool things off, either.
Which was likely the reason all the red flags were snapping in the breeze every time she noticed him.
On the plus side, the guy was wearing a pair of shorts and nothing else, which offered her a perfect view of every delectable plane and angle of his upper body. He looked good enough to eat, yes, but he had to be sweating his balls off.
Dani knew she shouldn’t care what he was doing, but for some unknown reason, she couldn’t stop watching him. The view from her first-floor balcony was perfect for watching the sunrise over the ocean in the mornings and that was why she enjoyed sitting out here so much. Or so she tried to tell herself.
She was trying not to stare. Really. It wasn’t like she hadn’t been laid in almost six freaking years.
Oh, wait. Yes, it was.
Okay, so she could blame her need to stare on her hormones. However, she knew that self-preservation was a more valid reason not to ogle him from head to toe. It didn’t even matter that he was built like a Greek god with all of those sleek, rippling muscles and she was currently riding a six-year dry spell because she should’ve been slipping the safety off and taking up a defensive position inside, where it was far safer for her to be. Or better yet, hopping in her car and hitting the open road.
Because someone was stalking her, of that she had no doubt.
You should call Max, her subconscious told her for the umpteenth time.
Yep. She should.
Dani should simply break down and give Max a call, tell him everything that was going on, and let him shelter her from the storm. She’d spent the past four months effectively evading everyone who might’ve been looking for her—Sniper 1 Security, her entire family, even the psycho she knew was attempting to track her down and kill her—but for some reason she felt as though she was running out of time.
If she had, in fact, been found by this blond Adonis, someone really needed to know. As much as she didn’t want to, Dani knew she had to eventually tell Max—and the rest of her family—the truth. It was going to come out sooner or later. She honestly would rather be alive to see it than to have them hear the news when they were burying her.
Shit.
The blond sun god stood tall, his eyes scanning the horizon, then coming to land on her. And there was no doubt about it, the guy was tall. Likely six and a half feet if she’d had to guess. Built like a brick shithouse, as Ashlynn liked to say.
What if this blond sun god wasn’t actually working out? What if he’d been hired to find her and she was now looking at the man who could ultimately lead whomever wanted her dead right to her doorstep?
Or worse. What if he was the guy who was going to snuff her out?
In all fairness, he probably would’ve done that by now.
Of course, her irrational brain wondered if he was one of those psycho hitmen who liked to draw the cat-and-mouse game out because he preyed on his target’s fear. Which made far more sense considering the game she’d been trapped in for the past four months. Whoever was after her certainly wanted her to keep running scared. And they’d succeeded because that was about all she seemed to be doing these days.
YOU CAN RUN BUT YOU CAN’T HIDE.
Damn. She could still see the words written in blood on the safe house wall. Whose blood, she wasn’t sure, and truthfully, she didn’t want to know.
THE CHILD SHALL PAY FOR THE SINS OF THE FATHER.
That was the message she’d received at the last safe house she’d stayed in. Hence the reason she ran.
And the need to hide, to collect her thoughts and come up with a plan, was the reason she was here in this one-bedroom condo on South Padre Island in the first place. This was her safe haven, or it was supposed to be, anyway. At least until she could decide what to do next.
Although h
er cousin Max—at least the family believed he was her cousin—had attempted to bring her back into the fold when she returned home two years ago—after Samuel Adorite met his demise—Dani should’ve known that it wasn’t possible to put down roots.
There was a reason someone wanted her dead and she hadn’t gotten lucky enough that her secret had died with Samuel Adorite. The bastard. She wished she could dig him up, resuscitate him, just so she could have the pleasure of killing him herself.
And fine. Perhaps that wasn’t the best idea in the world, since there was no way in hell she’d last a minute in jail. Not because she was a wuss, either. Someone would put her lights out permanently before Dani could eat her first behind-bars meal. She was, after all, an Adorite.
So, it was a good thing she hadn’t killed the son of a bitch. But to her dismay, the secret she and her mother had tried so hard to keep was out and that meant Dani was as good as dead if they found her. And someone was looking for her. Although everyone seemed to assume it was Dennis Moroso, Dani knew it wasn’t the mobster hell-bent on seeking revenge on Max for killing Moroso’s lunatic brother.
Nope, that would’ve been too easy. Dani might not be able to survive prison, but she wasn’t a lightweight. She could handle her own, thank you very much.
Whoever the crazy guy was who’d been trailing her across the country and back again was definitely not the dead, wannabe mob boss’s vengeful brother. This guy was good. He was trained, he was lethal, and above all else, he was batshit crazy. On top of that, the asshole was usually one step ahead of her.
But so far, Dani had proven to be better.
However, she knew she would eventually reach the end of the line.
Her eyes tracked Adonis as he grabbed his towel and scrubbed the sweat from his face.
Yeah. Running was about the only thing she had left to do.
Except, the money she had left wasn’t going to go far. Especially not after she’d paid cash for the run-down little Honda Civic that’d brought her from the safe house she’d been staying at in Florida to Corpus Christi. That’d set her back nine hundred dollars. Another six hundred in gas and cheap motel rooms along the way had pretty much run her dry. She had plenty of money in the bank, but cash was her only option. The second she used a credit card or withdrew money from any of her accounts, he’d be on her in a heartbeat. As would Max, and until Dani was ready, she didn’t want anyone knowing where she was. Not even her family.
Tomorrow's Too Late (Sniper 1 Security, 3) Page 8