But James caught him off guard by diving to his side and rolling back up to his feet nearly a yard away. And when he came up this time, he looked decidedly more prepared than he had when they first squared off.
“What’s wrong, John?” James taunted. “Did you think I just sat on my ass when you disappeared?”
“You preferred to settle things with a gun, last I remember. Not much of a hands-on kind of guy,” Dom said.
James chuckled low. “For you, I’ll make an exception.”
Dom wanted to charge the fucker again, but he had to play it cautiously. He didn’t know his brother’s moves, and he didn’t know if he had any more weapons on him. This time he’d brought his own gun, but he wasn’t going to pull it on a supposedly unarmed man. Besides, he really wanted to knock the shit out of his brother before the cops finally arrived. For now, he was content to keep him talking.
“Did you make the same exception when you killed our father?”
James snorted. “Is this for whatever wire or recording devices happen to be in the warehouse?”
“Just between you, me, and the birds in the ceiling.”
“Pfft…whatever. Doesn’t matter. I’m going to kill you, and I’ll walk away because no one can tell us apart. They’ll think it’s James O’Brien dead on the ground regardless, and I’ll just go on being Dominic Walsh. You know why? Because we look the same. We sound the same. We have the same fucking DNA.”
“We’re not the same person, you fucking psychopath!” Dom roared.
James took advantage of Dom’s rage. Lowering his shoulder, he plowed into Dom’s stomach, taking him straight to the ground. Pain exploded in Dom’s back, and his breath rushed out of his lungs. James got his knees under him and attempted to straddle Dom’s waist, but Dom quickly dug his heels into the concrete and rolled, putting him on top of James. The other man locked his legs around Dom’s waist so that he could move into full control. Didn’t matter. Andrei had given him more than enough grappling lessons over the past year. He could manage just fine.
He caught James’s left hand with his right, pinning it to the ground. With his left forearm, he pummeled the bridge of James’s nose again and again. He could feel it break by the third hit and then moved his aim to James’s right eye. Enough hits and it would swell shut, partially blinding him.
James countered by trying to push Dom off him or swing his free hand, but Dom kept his head tucked close to his shoulder and chest so that James didn’t have a clear target. But it also meant that he didn’t see James snatch up a loose board from a broken pallet. The wood slammed against Dom’s temple.
Falling away from James at the same time as his brother pushed him, Dom rolled to his side and back to his feet. He swayed, the darkening world a little blurry as pain splintered through his skull. He was aware of James skittering off in the opposite direction. In the same direction that James’s gun had flown when Dom knocked it away.
Dom stepped away from James, blinking hard to clear his vision. He reached behind his back and pulled out the gun sitting snug in its holster at the small of his back. At the same time, he heard the telltale scrape of metal along concrete. James had found the gun.
“James,” Dom said in warning. His brother had pushed to his feet several yards away and was standing with his back to Dom. His shoulders were slightly bowed in and he was breathing heavily, each gasping breath filling the quiet of the warehouse. Dom was balanced on the balls of his feet, ready to move, while still holding his gun down at his side. He would never shoot a man in the back, and he would never shoot an unarmed man. But he was pretty sure that only one of those things described James at that moment.
“It doesn’t have to end like this, James,” Dom started again. His voice was rough as a lump of rage and something else started to form in his throat. “You can just go back to California and forget that I exist. Go back to your life and I’ll go back to mine.”
“It’s all or nothing, John,” James whispered.
“No! No, it’s not! We’re brothers, dammit. Brothers. You’re the last of my flesh and blood. Why can’t we just be fucking brothers?”
“Because it’s not like that with us.”
“Why? Didn’t you ever just want to hang out? Grab pizza. Go to a movie. Just…be brothers. None of this other shit.”
James shook his head. “We were meant for bigger and better things than that.” He straightened as he spoke.
“Don’t, James.”
“We are wolves.”
“James…”
“And if you’re not a part of my pack…” James swung around to face Dom, lifting the gun as he turned.
Clenching his teeth, Dom raised his gun at the same time. He pivoted his hips, turning as much of his body sideways as he could to give James less of a target. Slowly, he released a breath and squeezed the trigger. The explosion in the warehouse was enormous, deafening Dom. Both guns went off at the same time.
James flew backward and hit the ground hard. The hand holding the gun was thrown wide. One more shot was fired, but it was nowhere near Dom. James didn’t make a sound. Dom patted his own chest in shock. He was unharmed. His brother’s shot missed him.
Keeping his gun drawn, Dom slowly edged over to where James was lying unmoving on the concrete. There was just enough light to see the gun had fallen from James’s hand and was laying a few feet away. A growing circle of blood was spreading across his chest, where Dom’s bullet had gone straight through his heart. There was no breath. No movement. James’s wide green eyes stared blankly up at the ceiling.
“James?” Dom croaked. His knees gave out and he collapsed to the floor next to his brother’s body. With a shaking hand, he reached out and pressed his fingers along his neck. He tried again and again, angry at the trembling he couldn’t control, but he couldn’t find a pulse.
Oh God, he’d shot his brother. Killed him.
A broken sob escaped his throat, and he sat down hard on the cooling concrete next to his brother. Yes, James would have killed him. Tried to kill him. But Dom had never wanted this. He just wanted to be free. To be a good man.
“Dom?” Abe’s voice was like a soothing balm in his ear. Dom’s head jerked up and he looked around, the warehouse blurry through the tears streaking down his cheeks. But he was still alone. Abe’s voice had come from the earwig he was still wearing. “Dom, baby. Please, talk to me. What happened?”
“He’s gone. I killed him. He was my brother…” He pressed his hands to his eyes as the words came pouring out. He still held the damn gun like it was melded to his skin.
“I’m coming. I’ll be there soon. Just hang on.”
“Hurry. Please,” Dom whispered. He couldn’t do this without Abe. Everything hurt too much and the only thing that didn’t hurt, that still made sense, was Abe.
Chapter Eighteen
On Abe’s fiftieth birthday, he woke to the acrid scent of burning candles and a warm mouth surrounding his dick. He looked down to see a naughty gleam in the beautiful green eyes looking up at him. He moaned as Dom tightened his lips and used his tongue to explore a vein, then came up to lick around the head.
Abe’s eyes shut and the sheet fell off one leg as he brought them both up to better push deeper into Dom’s throat. Fuck, he loved how Dom got off on that, and his boyfriend’s answering groan sent a shiver racing up his spine. He opened his eyes, watching his cock disappear in Dom’s mouth, and the hoarse sort of chuckle and choke that escaped him brought the eyes back to him.
“So good, Dom. I could wake like this every day.”
Dom pulled off. “That could be arranged.”
“Agh! Why’d you stop?”
Nuzzling into Abe’s balls, his hot breath made Abe shiver as he asked, “How’s my quinquagenarian doing today?”
“Let me guess—that has something to do with me turning fifty?”
Dom held up his dick and licked the tip of it. “It does. Mmmm, fifty tastes good on you.”
Grasping Dom under
the arms, Abe dragged him up his body and stuck out his tongue. Dom touched his to it, grinning before he slid the whole thing into Abe’s mouth. He buried his fingers in Dom’s hair, glad he could because the man’s head had healed. He tugged on the soft hair a little and when Dom came up, he kissed the scar on his face, then his nose, which wrinkled as he laughed.
“Did you set my house on fire? Because it smells like it.”
“Fifty candles are a lot.” Dom sat up, straddling him, and pointed to the bedside table where he’d put a tall stack of pancakes with a mass of candles burning and melting all over them. “We’ll have to ditch the top one because I got distracted by the enticing tent in the covers you’d made.” He glanced over his shoulder. “The one you’re still making.”
Abe held his breath when Dom reached behind him and made a tugging motion before he tossed his favorite plug onto the floor. He held Abe’s gaze as he backed up and slid his ass onto Abe.
The plug had left him open, so Abe slid right in to the hilt. They’d both been tested and going bare with Dom made him feel even more deeply connected to the man. And holy shit, it felt good to slide into that scorching channel. He could live there.
“Best. Birthday. Ever.” His words were punctuated with thrusts of his hips. “Love the way you feel inside—so hot and tight.”
“Feels like it’s my birthday,” Dom breathed as he braced those sexy-as-fuck arms on either side of Abe and went to town on his dick. Up and down he moved before rolling his hips.
Abe reached down and clutched his ass as he fucked deep into Dom’s body. He couldn’t take his eyes off the beautiful man doing his best to pull his brains out through his cock. Muscles rippled in his arms and shoulders, his abs doing that sexy, quivering dance as he moved his hips. All of him was so beautiful, yet the best part of him was the way he looked down at Abe, the way his eyes slid mostly shut when pleasure overtook him. He loved fully, and Abe felt like the luckiest man on Earth. “I love you so much,” Abe whispered.
“Love you, too. Agh!” Dom sat back, sending Abe deep. He cried out again, the veins standing out in his neck. “There! Oh, it’s so damn good right there. God, I love that fat cock of yours!”
Vocal Dom was always added pleasure and Abe pushed into him hard, forcing out all kinds of sexy noises, cries, and grunts. Dom suddenly clamped down on him so hard, Abe saw stars.
“I’m gonna come!”
“Yeah, baby, do it.” Abe loved to watch Dom spill all over him, and he watched with greedy eyes as the man above him came apart. As always, that was enough to send Abe over with him, and he groaned long and loud as he came inside Dom.
Dom slumped over him, breathing hard into his neck, dropping a kiss every few seconds. He finally laughed and squeezed his arm around Abe’s waist before looking at the bedside table. “Those cheap-ass candles burned out. And yeah, we’re not eating that top one unless you were one of those kids who actually ate the little wax bottles filled with juice.”
“How do you even know about those?”
“Retro Candy, how else?”
Abe rolled his eyes and hugged him close. “I love that you made me pancakes and I’ll eat them, waxy or not.”
“You’re so easy.”
“We just proved that.” Abe stared into Dom’s face, watching for the hints of sadness that had flitted through so often in the days after he’d taken his brother’s life, glad to see none.
The police had ruled James’s death self-defense, and considering nobody had known of John O’Brien’s existence, James had been the one wanted for all those crimes in the past. It had been touch-and-go for a while as Abe worried Dom’s past would come back to bite him in the ass. Outside of a lot of questioning, and hours spent sharing the cipher and more, the authorities had many past crimes that were now pinned on James and his crew. The police had rounded them up, thanks to a little help from Ward Security, and Abe doubted they’d see freedom for a long time.
He had a feeling Rowe and his powerful friends had a little to do with the fact that Dom wasn’t in trouble for using his current identity. Hell, his birth one had never legally existed.
Dom sat up and swung his legs to the side of the bed. He gave Abe a saucy grin before sauntering naked into the master bath. He came back with a warm rag he used to clean Abe; then he stood eyeing the pancakes, with a frown crinkling his nose and brow. “We’re not eating these. Good thing I saved the batter. Come on.” He held out his hand. “Let’s go have a very unhealthy breakfast. I want bacon, too. I picked some up on the way here last night.”
“You don’t have cake planned for tonight at your place, do you?”
“It’s a birthday cookout, so of course there’s cake. We’ll go running every day next week to make up for it.” He tugged Abe out of the bed and smacked his ass as he walked past. “No clothes either. I’m still pretending it’s my birthday, too.”
“You never take your eyes off him.”
Dom turned from where he was grilling burgers, and his belly flip-flopped when he realized who’d spoken. Shane. Abe’s son had been on a few hectic cases the last month, so they’d only been able to meet for lunch once since the insane shootout with James in the warehouse and even then, others had been around. Shane had watched him quietly, so obviously perplexed by Dom’s relationship with his father.
After a month with the man, Dom knew even more that this was a forever thing. So Shane was just going to have to get used to him.
Coworkers and friends filled his backyard, where he’d strung lights in the trees that would come on soon with the approaching darkness. He stood on his deck, and though he was in charge of the meat portion of the meal, yeah, he’d been mostly watching Abe laughing with his boss. Abe wore those loose, sexy, and faded jeans Dom loved with a brown Henley that made his eyes look like warm coffee. Rowe made an explosion gesture with his hands and Abe threw his head back, his laughter deep and throaty.
So. Fucking. Sexy.
“Dom.”
Embarrassed, he tore his gaze off his man and turned it back to the son. “Sorry.”
“Actually, don’t be. I’m…happy to see how you are with him. I’ll confess, I came here worried. My mother did a real number on him, and he didn’t date anyone again. I thought he never would. Then when he does, it’s well, surprising.”
“So you’re thinking what? That I’m some kind of midlife crisis?”
Shane shrugged. “I was. A little.” He glanced at his father, then focused brown eyes so like Abe’s back on him. “But I was mostly wondering what you were after.”
“After? Like his money?”
Shane looked around at the acre property and two-story house. “That’s obviously not it. Looks like you do okay.”
“Yeah, Ward is good to his employees.” He moved a few of the burgers to the top grate and shut the lid. “Shane, I plan to ask your dad to move in here with me. I have room for a nice-sized workshop and he wouldn’t have to worry about neighbors. It makes sense.”
Shane smirked. “You’re moving him here because you want him here.”
“Of course I do.” He watched Shane’s face with his next words. “I’m in love with your father. Deeply, completely, and madly in love.”
“I know.” Shane nodded. “I can tell. Like I said, you never take your eyes off him. You look at him the way I look at Quinn—like you’re wondering what the hell you ever did to land someone so wonderful.” He didn’t even have to look around to find his own boyfriend, his eyes zeroing in like he knew exactly where he was at all times. Quinn and several Ward employees and a few other people were sitting at the tables Dom had put under the trees. Tiki torches surrounded the yard, doing their best to drive away the mosquitos and failing. Citronella candles in buckets centered on each table were hopefully picking up the slack.
The air smelled of hamburgers, beer, and the honeysuckle growing wild across one side of his property.
Dom had strung lights in the trees and one table held a covered cake he hadn’t let
Abe see. Grinning at the thought of Abe’s reaction to that, he flipped a couple of burgers.
Shane’s attention came back to him. “Thank you for throwing him a birthday party. I’d planned to take him on that trip to the cabin last month, but he had better things to do.”
“He sure did.” Dom winked, then looked for Abe when laughter broke out once again. All his coworkers who were off for the night had come. Royce, Garrett, and Seth. Royce’s boyfriend, Marc, sat chatting with Noah Keegan. Dom had managed to find the numbers of most of Abe’s friends, too. A woman who worked at Krohn Conservatory and a few of his neighbors had come. Even the elderly lady who lived across from Abe sat next to Quinn, talking up a storm about how to kill rabid zombies in some video game.
Chuckling, Dom searched out Abe again and this time, the man was staring back at him. Their eyes locked and that swell of warmth in his chest happened again—the one that told him he’d found everything he’d always wanted in this man.
“He loves you too,” Shane said. “I’ve never seen him this happy.”
“The plan is to keep him smiling like that for the rest of his life.”
“Good plan.”
“I’m known for my good plans.”
This time, real amusement laced Shane’s laughter. “Yeah, that’s not what I understand. In fact, I heard this story about a job Royce was on and some high-powered laxative…”
The heat in his cheeks suddenly had nothing to do with the grill. “Quinn is a dead man.”
Snorting, Shane bent to grab a couple of beers from the cooler. He handed one to Dom. “So, about that cake.”
“You peeked?”
“You already said Quinn is a dead man.”
Dom shook his head, then took a swig of his beer. “He and I are gonna have a long talk.”
Shane’s good-natured laughter warmed his heart, but it was time for some payback.
Sadistic Sherlock (Ward Security Book 4) Page 19