by Erin M. Leaf
“Fuck. Suck it.” Knox pushed the words out through gritted teeth. “Cocksucker.” He looked down, eyes black as death.
Mick hummed agreement, pushing thoughts of Knox’s father away. He was indeed a cocksucker. He let the edge of his teeth brush the head, and then he concentrated on opening his throat. The knife he kept at Knox’s groin. One wrong move and he’d slice himself open. Mick knew right where to sink it in to do the most damage.
Knox panted, sweat slicking his chest and mixing with the blood.
Mick deep-throated him, cutting off his own air supply. He stayed that way for a moment, and then he swallowed, holding Knox’s gaze.
“Fucking sick perv,” Knox said, mouth open and wet.
Mick eased off when his vision began to sparkle from lack of oxygen. He sucked the head, swirling his tongue around, and then he took Knox back in. He set the blade against Knox’s balls again, letting him feel the sharp edge. An inarticulate growl greeted this movement. Mick hummed, then backed off. “My knife can ruin you in less than a second.”
Knox stared down at him. “Fuck you.”
Mick licked his lips. That did not sound like a bad idea. He stood up.
“What the hell? Are you a cock-tease along with everything else?” Knox lunged for him, but Mick backed out of the way, knife up.
“I told you not to move.”
Knox growled, but he stopped, hands fisted around his chains.
Mick nodded, watching to make sure Knox obeyed, and then he began to unbutton his shirt.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
Mick didn’t answer. He tossed the shirt aside and sheathed his blade, then took off his pants. When he was nude except for the sheaths on his wrists and ankles, he opened the drawer next to Knox’s hip. Ah. Right where I left it.
“If you think you’re going to fuck me, I’d rather die,” Knox said, anger mixing with the lust on his face. His fingers opened and spread, ready to attack again.
“Oh please. If I fucked you, you’d only think you’d died and gone to heaven.” Mick laughed. “But no. You’re going to fuck me.”
Knox stilled.
Mick ignored him, opening the bottle of lube and pouring a generous amount on his fingers. “One minute,” he said, and then he lifted a leg to the sink and began to open himself up.
“Jesus.” Knox stared at him, eyes going completely black. “You’re fucking insane.”
“No. I just like to grab the moment.” Almost immediately, Mick decided he’d done enough prep. He liked pain. He wanted it to hurt. He wanted to feel. He grabbed a condom and tossed it at Knox. The man caught it, chains and all. Mick turned and leaned over the sink, looking at the killer in the mirror. His erect dick pressed into the cold granite just the way he liked it. “Well?”
Knox glared at him. “I’m not a homo.”
Mick rolled his eyes. “I don’t give a rat’s ass what you tell yourself at night.” He shifted, rolling his prick into the counter. Sparks of delicious pain shot through his balls. “Are you going to make me wait much longer? Because I can totally fuck you instead. I could chain you down and open you up fast and rough, and you couldn’t do a damn thing to stop me.” Mick watched Knox’s eyes go feral in the mirror. The expression on his face shot a frisson of adrenaline through him. Knox wasn’t your average tough guy. He was dangerous, and Mick loved it. He sucked in a hard breath as his dick swelled even more despite the pain of the counter’s clean edge. “You’d like it if I put my cock in you, wouldn’t you, Knox?” Mick let a sharp smile spread across his face. “Because then you wouldn’t have to convince yourself you weren’t gay. Bi. Whatever. You could sleep great at night if it was rape, right?”
“Fucking bastard,” Knox muttered, but he finally moved, opening the wrapper and rolling it down over his dick. Then, he stepped in, covering Mick with his body. The chains on his wrists slid over Mick’s arms, hard and cold.
“Don’t forget, even if you choke me, I can still cut you open before you get away.” Mick smiled, cruel and satisfied when Knox just grunted, then shoved his legs open with a thigh.
“You’re a sick fuck.” His cock nudged at Mick’s entrance.
“Yes. Now, stop talking.” Mick unsheathed his wrist blade, running it down his own arm. He liked the bite of the metal. When Knox pushed into him with a single hard thrust, Mick gasped. It hurt. He liked it. His dick jumped. He reached down with the knife, pressing the point onto the slick tip of his erection. “Yeah. Perfect.”
Knox grabbed his wrist, trapping the knife against the counter. “Put it away. You already bled me enough today. I don’t want to watch you bleed yourself, too.”
Mick laughed. “I also sucked your cock.”
Knox growled, then began to move. His hips jerked with all the finesse of a dog rutting on instinct, but Mick had no complaints. The man’s prick was so big he hit Mick’s prostate with every push inside. Mick let Knox hold him up, fingers tangled together over the knife.
“This won’t change anything.” Knox muttered into Mick’s shoulder.
Mick shook his head, staring into the mirror. “Did I say it would? No. I just like to fuck.” His leather sheaths looked good against his skin. He wondered what his leather would look like on the assassin, and the image in his head made him groan.
Knox’s eyes flashed for a moment, and then he leaned down and bit Mick in the shoulder.
“Christ!” Mick gasped as pain turned to heat. It felt like the teeth in his skin had a direct connection to his erection. “Come on, Knox. Give it to me. Show me what you’ve got.”
“Fucking pussy.” Knox thrust faster, and the sound of skin slapping together was just what Mick needed to go over the edge. He shivered, and then all of his muscles locked up. His dick jerked, spurting jizz all over the counter.
Knox groaned, fingers tightening over Mick’s, and then he tensed, riding out his orgasm. Warmth spread through Mick’s body, and then Knox pulled out, breathing harshly.
Mick sagged for a moment, then forced himself to turn around. It wouldn’t do to let his guard down. Knox looked like he’d been through a war. His dick was half-hard and drooping, condom clinging to the tip. Blood smeared all over his torso. Beautiful. Mick smiled, completely satisfied for the first time in his life. Knox was the only lover he’d ever had who could take so much damage and like it. “Clean up.”
Knox’s head jerked up. “You still think you can chain me up?”
Mick lifted an eyebrow. “I have the key.” He glanced down at Knox’s feet. “You don’t even have shoes.” He turned his back and began to dress, ignoring the drying semen and blood on his skin. It didn’t bother him. On the contrary, he liked to keep his little souvenirs for a while. Blood on his body meant he’d had a good time. When he finished dressing, Knox had pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt, and stood near the sink, eyeing his wrists. Bruises showed under the shackles, but Mick refused to let anything sway him from the direction he needed this situation to go. He’d noticed that Knox hadn’t bothered to wipe up, either. Fascinating.
“Come on.” He gathered up the chains and led Knox back to the room. “We’ll talk more tomorrow.” He bolted the chains back to the wall. “I need everything you know about DiLorenzo, no holding back.”
Knox stared up at him from the bed, face inscrutable.
“Hell,” Mick said under his breath, then leaned down and kissed him softly. “Thanks for the fuck.” He straightened up and strode out of the room, not waiting to see the look on the assassin’s face.
Disgust or interest, it doesn’t matter to me, he thought, closing and locking the door behind him.
Chapter Five
Knox waited until he was sure Mick wasn’t coming back, and then he waited some more. Night wrapped the house in quiet. He spit out the hairpin. It gleamed dull brown against the white sheets, like some broken twig that had lost the fight with winter.
Fuck. It’s time to get the hell out of here. He picked the slender piece of metal up an
d went to work. A frustrating half hour later, the cuffs lay in four pieces on the bed. He rubbed the skin at his wrists, then rolled tension out of his shoulders.
“Not gay,” he whispered, then scowled. He wasn’t sure what bothered him more: the chains, or the fact that he’d let Mick seduce him into sex. Normally, he wasn’t interested. Guy, girl, didn’t matter. He just didn’t get riled up that way, but when Mick cut him open…
You liked it, asshole. He flushed, remembering the hot, tight, perfection of Mick’s ass. Doesn’t make me interested. Doesn’t make me anything. He stood up, wondering what would happen to Aileen once he’d gone. He glared at the door, then searched the room. A frustrating ten minutes later he realized there wasn’t a damned thing he could use to write with. Sighing, he stabbed the tip of the hairpin into his thumb, then used the blood to write a message on the wall: DiLorenzo likes them young. 421 Green St. He pursed his lips, then added another line: She’s his type.
“That’s enough,” he muttered, leaving the hairpin on the sheets. “He doesn’t need any more of my fucking blood.” Knox didn’t owe Mick a damned thing, anyway. Hell, he didn’t know anything else about DiLorenzo, and he liked it that way. The less he knew about his clients’ sick hobbies the better. He ignored the nauseating cramp of his stomach reminding him that there were things in this world that bothered even him. Like DiLorenzo’s revolting sexual habits. Fuck, he needed to get the hell away from Mick and all of his fucking mental games. And his damned little sister with her innocent face and sandwiches.
I can’t afford to give a shit about anyone. He’d learned that a long time ago, and nothing had happened yet in his life to convince him otherwise. Worrying about other people brought nothing but more shit into an already shitty world. Knox eased the screen out of the window, wincing when he saw how far he’d have to jump. Whatever. Nothing he could do about it. He slipped over the threshold and lowered himself down carefully, then let go. The cuts on his chest stung as he rolled over the hard ground. The cut on his neck just fucking hurt. He’d lost way too much blood in the past twenty-four hours. Fucking thief and his goddamn knives…
Knox dismissed the pain and crouched in the grass, listening for an alert. Listening for Mick. He let out a careful breath when he realized that no one had heard his escape. He eased up, then made his way to the woods beyond the house. It was a clear night. He’d have no problem finding his way home.
****
Mick stood in the empty room and stared at the wall. The blood Knox had used to write his message had dried into a rusty brown color, but that didn’t make it any less startling. Or arousing.
“A hairpin. Jesus.” Mick pushed against his erection, willing it to subside. Now was not the time. How the hell Knox had managed to pick the locks on the shackles with a single sliver of metal was a mystery, and Mick was an expert at lock picking. He wasn’t sure he could’ve done it in Knox’s place. He glanced at the wrecked sheets, then picked up the bent hairpin and slipped it into his pocket. He gritted his teeth as his cock throbbed. All this blood was making him crazy.
“Hey, I brought the eggs you wanted…” Aileen’s voice trailed off.
Mick turned, not surprised to see her in the doorway, eyes fixed in horrified fascination on Knox’s message. Her expression killed his boner, thank God, so at least there was that. “I told you to stay downstairs.” He really didn’t want his sister to get any more involved with his work, yet here she was, staring at the blood on the wall. Literally.
“Where’s Knox?” Her voice trembled. “Is that his blood?” She looked at him. “Did you kill him?”
“No, I did not kill him. Jesus.” Mick walked over to her. He took the tray, nudging her back out into the hall. “He escaped.”
“What?” Aileen stopped, glancing back over Mick’s shoulder. “How? You had him chained up.” She hunched her shoulders. “Not that I’m upset he’s gone. You shouldn’t have done that to him anyway.”
“He picked the locks on the shackles, and went out the window.” Mick kicked the door shut. “And I shackled him to the wall because I needed information from him, and he wasn’t what anyone would call a cooperative person. You know that.”
“Why couldn’t you just ask him?”
Mick stared at his sister. She had no idea how absurd her question was. “Knox isn’t the kind of guy you can just call up and talk to, Aileen.”
She leaned back against the wall, arms hugging her upper body. “You never even tried.” Her lower lip pushed out.
Mick sometimes forgot how young she was. “He’s an assassin,” he told her gently. “He kills people for money. He has no reason to give out information for free.”
She licked her lips. “You could’ve paid him for the stuff you wanted to know.”
Mick snorted. “Yeah, no. I don’t have that kind of money.”
She wrinkled her nose, looking pointedly at the hard wood floors and the cathedral ceiling stretching over the lower level.
Mick sighed, knowing exactly what she was thinking. “Knox charges millions to do what he does, sis. Yeah, I make enough to have a nice house, and take care of you, but I don’t make enough to pay his fee.” He rubbed his face. “I don’t want to make that much. I want to slip by, no one the wiser.”
“You shouldn’t be stealing things from other people.” Aileen scowled, heading back to the room, but Mick blocked her way. He didn’t want her in there.
“It is what it is.”
She crossed her arms. “It’s dangerous.”
Mick couldn’t argue with her on that point, and he wasn’t even going to try. How to explain that he needed the adrenaline rush? That if he didn’t steal things, he’d start cutting instead? He didn’t know if it was his unstable childhood or simple genetics, but something had shaped him into a monster, and it was far too late to change. He liked blood and pain too much to entirely stop, but the thieving helped. He held her gaze until her eyes dropped.
“I’ll go take care of the dirty bedding,” she muttered.
“No. I’ll clean up in there.” He motioned towards the steps. “Let’s go down and eat breakfast. I’ll make you pancakes.”
She glared at him, but he wasn’t above using bribes on a fifteen-year-old girl.
“Chocolate chip pancakes.” He upped the ante and waited.
She huffed. “Okay, fine.” She headed downstairs. “Why aren’t you angry?”
Mick followed her down into the kitchen and set the food tray on the granite counter. “At Knox?”
“Yeah.” She sat at the counter and began picking at a banana. “He escaped. You said he was dangerous. You said he was hired to kill you.”
Mick poured himself a cup of coffee, buying himself time to come up with an answer that would make sense to his sister. “I am angry, but I’m alive. That means he was telling the truth when he said he dropped the contract on my head.” He sipped his coffee black. He carefully didn’t mention the real reason he was angry, and why he hid it so carefully: I wanted him to fuck me again, and now he’s gone, the bastard.
“You’re not angry because you’re not dead. That’s weird.” Aileen peeled the banana. “You liked him.” She took a bite, chewing defiantly.
Shit, she’s perceptive. Mick sipped his coffee. “Yes, I did. So what?”
“You shouldn’t have chained him up.” She looked down at the counter, tracing a finger along a vein of white in the black surface. “You shouldn’t have hurt him,” she whispered.
Mick’s heart gave a hard thump. “Look, Aileen—” he began, but she cut him off.
“No. Don’t try to hide it. I saw Knox’s neck. And his wrists.” She swallowed, obviously uncomfortable. “I don’t know what’s wrong with you, or why, but it’s not right. You shouldn’t hurt people like that.”
Mick stared at her, anger slowly building. Maybe he should just tell her. Maybe if she faced the truth of how fucked up he really was, she’d stop picking at it. “If I didn’t, I’d hurt myself instead.” There. She could
chew on that and see how she liked it.
She raised clear blue eyes and pinned him with her gaze. “You already do, Mick. You may not be the one bleeding, but you’re hurting yourself every time you take those knives out. Don’t you see that?”
Mick gritted his teeth, carefully put his coffee down, then walked out of the room before he did something he’d regret. Something he couldn’t ever come back from.
It wasn’t until he reached Knox’s room that he realized he was bleeding. He stared at the knife in his hand, at the beads of red pooling against his forearm, and then he threw the blade across the room. It hit the center of Knox’s message with a sick thump, then fell to the bed, gleaming wetly.
I’m so fucked.
Chapter Six
Five months later…
Knox crouched near the edge of the flat roof, ignoring the high winds and lightning flashing in the distance. It’s a dark and motherfucking stormy night. He snorted. It’d serve him right if the clouds opened up on him while he was up here. He stared down at the sidewalk, then at the brick warehouse across the alley, eyes following the two men DiLorenzo had on duty outside. The open casement window on the second floor of the building mocked him. What the fuck did Mick think he was doing? Knox had followed him to the middle of the city, yet again, and now he clung to the edge of a roof, waiting for Mick like an obsessive fan desperate for an autograph. And why? To watch the damned thief fuck up his life. He grunted as a particularly strong gust pushed against him, but he had a firm grip on the cement rise and a bone to pick with a fucking idiot.
“Three jobs in two days, you stupid fuck.” Knox held his very expensive night vision scope up to his right eye and watched Mick’s head appear in the second story window. Trailing a thief was not what he’d bought the scope for, but whatever. It worked. He zoomed in, frowning when the slick bastard climbed out onto the sill, then stepped along an almost invisible ledge. Mick clung to the brick exterior like a spider. The wind didn’t seem to bother him.