His anatomy wasn’t confused by what was happening. All his blood seemed to have rushed into his cock as it bobbed. His heartbeat throbbed maddeningly along his shaft.
Sweet Jesus.
That mouth swallowing the length of him forced his breath out his nostrils as his heart kicked in his chest. The visual of Black on his knees, his lips against Killian’s skin, took every ounce of control to hold back. His cock twitched as his body trembled.
Black moved, drawing a hiss from between Killian’s teeth as the man’s teeth lightly scraped up his shaft.
He didn’t care what anyone said. Eyes closed, it was impossible to tell the sex of the mouth. Male. Female. The mouth felt the same. No, it was all in the technique. A woman could blow you as if your cock was the only thing in the world that mattered. But a man, he blew you like he knew how it felt. Both were fucking poetry, but they flowed in a different language.
He wanted to watch.
He wanted to see the act of his undoing, but together, the visual and the sensation were too much. It had been too long.
On a strangled cry, he threw back his head. The chords in his neck strained as he struggled to keep himself on the edge. Teeth, tongue, and lips worked his shaft to push him over.
He could feel the delicious tension build and build and build. His whole lower body tingled as the pressure turned into the sweetest, sharpest ache.
When Black cupped his balls again, his hips bucked, forcing his cock deeper down the man’s throat.
He gave up on the restraint.
He began to fuck back. To chase the very edge of his desire, an edge so sharp it cut.
He choked out a strangled cry as he burst past the point of no return. His cock jerked violently as it pumped into Black’s mouth. His hips arching off the desk as he tried to thrust even deeper as he spilled.
He reached for Black’s shoulders, balancing as he felt the wash of weakness following the rush of pleasure, but Black grabbed his hands and held them behind his back, the secure grip holding him up.
Black was back in control, the message unmistakable.
Killian didn’t fight his hold as the man reclaimed the rhythm again … sucking and licking him clean. The white noise of oblivion still muffled the world but for the very real and sharp sensation sending shocks along his sensitive cock.
He hissed and tried to pull out, but Black held him a moment longer, turning the too much into something different, a hurt that started to feel good.
Then Black let him fall, soft and satiated, from the warmth of his mouth. He gently pushed Killian back against the desk to rest. There was no urgency anymore. Spent and relaxed, he sank against the wood.
Eventually, Killian opened his eyes. Black was standing, watching him as he drew the back of his hand across his lips.
Jesus not that. Not obligation.
“You don’t owe me.” It hurt to say, the thought that Black thought this was payment.
Black tilted his head, eyes narrowing. “You think that’s what I did? How many ways do you think I can be bought?”
If there had been any sense of intimacy, it had just left.
Killian choked out a laugh and shook his head. Of course, he was getting to be a real expert in pushing people away.
He looked into Black’s sober gaze.
He should apologize to Black. He knew it, but the words were stuck.
Black opened his mouth to say something, but then changed his mind as he turned and left.
He picked up the phone, dialed and waited.
It rang three times.
He spoke before she even said hello. “I love you. Please come home.”
“I love you too.” She didn’t miss a beat.
He closed his eyes and relaxed. There was a reason he’d fallen so wildly in love with her. The fact that they’d both grown up without meant she understood life was broken, just like him. He could never give someone perfect, and Scar had never asked for it.
“The voice sessions are done. It’s been so good to reconnect, Danni wants me to stay a few days.” She paused. “But I want to come home.”
He smiled.
“Is Jerricho still there?” There was so much hope in those words.
“Yes, he is.”
She made a little noise and he pictured her smiling. He could hear her draw in a deep breath.
“I love him, Killian,” she said it so softly, as if the words were barely breathed.
“I know.”
“Does that make me bad?”
“Never.”
“I think you could like him … if you gave him a chance.”
He gave an ironic laugh.
“Why’d you bring him back, Killian?”
“Because I love you.” Why do I have to catch Romeo? Why can’t I sleep with you? “No matter what you ask, the answer will always be the same—because I love you.”
Twenty-Six
“And the sensation in your hand? Any numbness?”
Jerricho shook his head.
“Pins and needles?”
“It’s all good.” He was both relieved and irritated as he answered the physiotherapist’s questions. The tightness in his chest seemed to ease each day, along with the muscles and tendons in his hand, but he wasn’t going to truly breathe until every last trace of the incident had evaporated into memory. It had been five days since they’d stomped on his hand.
Four days since Scarlet had left.
One day since the scene with Killian.
“All right.” The physiotherapist lobbed a tennis ball at him. “Show me how you’ve been doing your exercises. I want to see if we need to make any adjustments.”
The ball slapped against his palm and his fingers curled and squeezed. The pull that ran from his hand up into his forearm was as uncomfortable as the knot that twisted in his stomach. Fuck, everything still felt frustratingly tight.
It wasn’t just his hand. He was torn. Wanting to stay. Needing to go.
He’d gone to Killian the day before, hoping to find the answer. On some level, he’d expected the man to reject him. On some level, he was curious to explore the chemistry he’d felt during their tango.
On some level, he just wanted to put something between him and Scarlet.
A movement caught his eye. As if Scarlet knew she was on his mind, she had slipped into the bedroom. He hadn’t known she’d come back.
“The exercises are fine, but let’s do another set. I want to see how tired your hand gets.” The voice of the physiotherapist droned in the background.
He moved through the exercise on autopilot, his focus on Scarlet. There was no smile. No look of surprise to find him still here. No clue as to whether that was a good thing. She stood against the wall, watching with cool indifference.
The twinge came from the center of his chest. His siren had him hooked; his body was calling him out on his bullshit. Everything was on the line.
The physiotherapist patted his arm, making him realize he’d finished the next set. “You have a lot of strength in the hand, that’s good.”
On any other day, the platitude would not have cracked his composure.
“It’s not about being strong,” he gritted his teeth. Strong helped. Strong meant stamina, but strong didn’t make a surgeon. “It’s about steady. About precision. Control.” His voice rose, punching each point as he lurched to his feet.
Fuck, he needed to move.
He squeezed the ball so tight, the muscle in his forearm shook. It was that, or throw the ball to smash something. He looked around, searching for something he couldn’t articulate.
But his line of sight kept returning to Scarlet.
Like a focal point, she was the only thing that calmed him in the room.
He let the ball slip to the floor. Putting his hands on his hips, he blew out a deep breath.
“I get it, Jerricho.” The physiotherapist dared to come close to him again. “What we do is part of our identity. It’s going to take a while, but barring
you doing anything stupid, there’s no reason to expect any long-term damage.”
Jerricho nodded, not so much to acknowledge the statement but to get the guy out. His gaze was on Scarlet. They needed to talk.
The physiotherapist looked between Jerricho and Scarlet, and cleared his throat. “I’ll see myself out.”
This time, Jerricho didn’t even acknowledge the comment.
Scarlet waited until the silence around them rang with the fact that the two of them were alone.
Eventually, she stirred. “My husband tells me you sucked his cock.”
“He asked. Not as nicely as you ask for things.”
“He won’t pay you.”
Jerricho laughed dryly and shook his head. “You think the money is all that matters.”
“I didn’t, until you left like you did.”
Of course, from Scarlet’s perspective, it was as if he’d taken the money and run.
“I’m sorry. You deserved a proper goodbye.” He didn’t bother to explain his intentions the night of the boxing, the tango, her being too drunk, and him hiding a hard-on for Killian. The next day, he’d snuck out while she was at her therapist like the thief she was accusing him of being.
“I deserved you to stay.”
He shook his head. It was no good to talk like this. To think like this.
He was still leaving.
Even now that Dado was dead.
Even after the study and Killian.
Even with the promise in Scarlet’s voice.
It was there. Promise.
Except she was promising a ghost. Jerricho Black didn’t exist. Until he had a name, he had no future.
The pain of being unable to do what she said transferred to his hand, a dull, throbbing hurt. He clutched his hand and started to massage between the metacarpals, long hard strokes with his thumb, as if the ache was not in his bones.
***
Scarlet weighed her options before pushing off the wall. She didn’t think fighting with him was going to work. Walking up to him, she reached out to take his wounded hand. It twitched as he placed it on her offered palm. So hot on her cool skin. Slowly, she began to massage and soothe it for him.
He bit back a contented groan, his shoulders softening.
“Why did you become a doctor?”
He blinked then cleared his throat. “It’s how nature balances a man like me.”
“What do you mean?”
“I decided young that if I wanted to break people, I needed to learn how to fix them.”
She stared into eyes that reflected so much soul.
“You don’t break people, Jerricho,” she whispered.
“You don’t know me.” The smile was self-deprecating.
“I keep trying.”
“You know I have to go—”
“Shit to do, people to see.”
He laughed, but everything was tinged with an empty sadness.
“You know what I think?” She looked up at him.
“What?”
“I think a man like you, if you really wanted to go, would be gone by now.”
He shook his head. “Don’t romanticize me. Maybe I’m still here because Killian’s paying my medical bills. Maybe it’s because he can help me get information. Maybe—”
Her hand pressed clumsily over his mouth. She wanted him to stop. Stop trying to convince her he wasn’t good enough for her. Just like Killian.
No.
No, she wasn’t going there with Jerricho.
Her fingers grasped as if she could catch and stop the words before they fell further, before they became real. “You can come up with a hundred reasons, but it won’t change the one that matters.”
His eyes burned at her, still talking even though he’d gone quiet.
“I want you here. You belong here.” Her hands were the ones trembling. “I want you to stay.”
Twenty-Seven
The call Killian had been waiting for finally came.
Eli had found Romeo. Only twenty-four hours and he would be in Killian’s hands. The lead from the informer had been correct.
Most people would celebrate the news, but Killian ached with a new tension, a burning inside his muscles all coiled and ready to spring.
He sat restlessly in the back of his car, emotions roiling inside him in a dark and deadly mix. His farm in Berry was roughly a three-hour drive from Sydney. There would be no neighbors, no witnesses.
There should have been no Scar.
He’d argued with Scar for her to stay in Sydney. He’d promised to come back in for her show.
There’d been no surprise when she’d messaged him to say that she and Jerricho had arrived at the farm while he was still at work. She’d go back to Sydney for the show. In the last text, she’d told him they were just going to have to agree to disagree.
She was right they disagreed.
He didn’t want Romeo near her. He didn’t want the cunt breathing the same air as her.
She was going back to Sydney and staying there.
“Put some music on?” Joel interrupted his thoughts as the driver looked at him in the rear-view mirror.
Maybe that was it—drown out the busy in his head. “What’s on your playlist?”
“Talking Heads. Stop Making Sense?”
He nodded.
The pulsing beat of the drums was almost hypnotic as he closed his eyes.
His phone buzzed in the lap of his pocket and he shifted his weight as he reached for it. Eli.
The rat in your house is Joel Sommers.
For a moment, the letters didn’t make sense. Then he realized they made a name. The wrong fucking name. His thumb swiped over the message to delete, the music shifting from enjoyment to pounding in his ears.
“Joel.”
His voice was soft but the man still heard.
Joel turned down the music and raised a quizzical eyebrow as he met Killian’s gaze in the rear-view mirror. There was the barest tic in the top lid of one of the man’s eyes. It was all there if you looked for it, the nervous tell. Attrition? Contrition? It didn’t matter; there was no saving the damned.
“Don’t go straight to the house.” Killian’s voice calm and smooth. “Go to the old farmhouse first.” It was where they planned to hold Romeo.
Joel grinned, his focus already falling back on the road. “Already part of the plan. Knew you’d want to check it out.”
Killian smiled. Bittersweet. Of course Joel anticipated the request, if not the reason. They’d been together a long time. He liked the man, he really did.
Joel had been with him from the start, both of them trying to make their money off cards in backroom games with the kind of people who’d sooner put a bullet in their head if they made the wrong move. Joel would never have made it on his own, and he’d idolised Killian.
It had been natural for him to tag along. He’d come to Vegas. He’d delivered the gifts when Killian had courted Scar. He’d been in the room when Killian had received the phone call about Daniel.
That’s what made the betrayal hurt.
That’s what made it unforgivable.
He flipped through his contacts and stopped on Eli. I’ll need a pickup.
Somers?
Yes.
Where?
I’ll let you know.
It was a shame, but that was the way of the world.
***
Killian stood leaning on the old fence running behind the original farmhouse. The building consisted of only three rooms. A security door replaced a regular door on the small bedroom, effectively turning it into a cell. The outhouse was further down the path, rudimentary plumbing only hooked up the kitchen taps. There was nothing comfortable about the place, but then again, there was nothing comfortable about hell.
Joel finished locking the house and came up to stand next to him.
“Have I ever said no when someone from my crew has come to me for help?” Killian spoke while gazing off into the distance. The ques
tion was rhetorical. He hired men who needed him, men who needed the chance he gave them—a lifeline that got repaid in fierce loyalty and dedication.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Joel’s puzzled profile as the man looked at him.
“Just answer the question.”
“No.” The man shook his head. “You always help.”
“And you? I ever not help you?”
“I could never repay you for all the times you’ve saved my ass.”
“Then why didn’t you come to me?”
The man’s hand wobbled on the fence railing.
“How much did you owe?”
“Three hundred thousand.” A gambling debt.
Scarlet had been to hell because of the fucking tic in the corner of Joel’s eye.
“Did it ever occur to you they were setting you up?” Killian shook his head. The pot was too big for a working man’s pocket.
“I know. Fuck, I know. But I was in too deep—”
Killian grabbed the man’s jacket and reached for his gun. That was the thing about guilt; it paralyzed you. “You made two bad choices. The first was when you betrayed me.”
Joel staggered back.
Only Superman outran a bullet.
The gun popped. The silencer muffling the sound that would echo up into the valley.
Joel’s left leg buckled as the bullet logged in the lower thigh. He crashed to the ground with a grunt instead of a scream.
“Please, Killian.” He sank to his knees.
“I don’t think they listened to Scar when she asked for mercy, you son of a bitch.” Killian walked behind him and kicked him in the back.
Joel fell forward onto the ground.
“I swear I didn’t know about the kidnapping. They just asked questions about your schedules. What you do. It seemed pointless, you have guards, you have me … I was going to protect you.”
The man cried, and Killian didn’t think it was because he was afraid to die.
“Like you protected me by giving up my wife?” Killian stood on the man’s thigh as he took the shot into the back of the kneecap.
This time the scream rang out. Wild and loud, it set off a flock of corellas in the nearby trees, the collective screeching echoing Joel’s pain. There was a reason kneecapping was feared. The bullet would rip through muscles, tendons, and a rich vein of nerves. It wasn’t going to kill him, just make him wish it had. He’d never walk right again.
Bought (Unchained Vice Book 3) Page 19