by Layla Reyne
Holt cleared the last trick from the center of the table, and Hawes brought his chair back down. “We do it,” he said, gesturing to the four of them. “We know all the variables in play.”
“It’s what Papa Cal would want,” Helena said softly.
Hawes couldn’t agree more. They owed their grandfather this much, for the legacy he was leaving them.
As if summoned by the mention of her husband, Rose appeared in the doorway. She looked like a shell of her normal polished self. Gray hair falling out of its French braid, her usually manicured nails chipped, weariness weighing down her shoulders. Hawes had seen her like this one other time. When she’d arrived home, weary from weeks on the run, to news that her son and daughter-in-law, Hawes’s parents, were dead. It had been the final straw then, momentarily breaking her. Hawes feared they were fast approaching another such moment now. His fear and certainty ratcheted up when a somber doctor appeared behind her.
Hawes rose and moved to stand next to Helena. “What’s going on?”
“Your grandfather has taken a turn for the worse,” the doctor said.
Rose drove it the rest of the way home. “He’s not asking for your parents anymore. He says Noah and Charlotte are there in the room, waiting for him.”
Helena muffled a cry and reached for Hawes’s hand. Across from them, Holt wrapped his wife and daughter in his arms, burying his face in Amelia’s hair. Rose collapsed onto the arm of the nearest chair and covered her face with her hands, sobbing quietly.
Dread settled in Hawes’s gut, on his aching back, and fuck if the crushing weight bearing down on him didn’t feel like the heaviest straw known to man.
Hawes turned the corner onto his street and spotted the Hog parked out front, its polished chrome and pearlescent blue paint gleaming in the halo of the streetlight. And leaning against a nearby lamppost, reading a new book, was the bike’s owner. Not hiding anymore.
“You making this a habit?” Hawes asked as he approached.
Dante pushed off the pole, tucked his book under his arm, and met Hawes in front of the building’s steps. The PI had changed since that morning. Jeans and a tank again, this one gray, and his denim jacket had been traded for a battered leather duster. Hawes bet the soft-looking leather smelled amazing, years of life worn into its grain. One of a kind.
“When do you get your Benz back?” Dante asked.
Not one of a kind, aside from a few custom modifications. Generic, relatively. “When Kane decides to release it from the impound lot.” If Hawes decided to reclaim it at all. He was leaning toward donating it to charity instead.
“Anything else from him today?” Dante asked as they made their way to the stairs.
“Nothing, though I haven’t been back to the office since Holt and I left to visit Papa Cal midday.”
“It’s past ten. Where’ve you been?”
“Ballpark.” He’d missed most of the game, arriving during the seventh-inning stretch, but after hours at the hospice house, with only Lily’s whimpers to break the heavy silence that had settled over his family, Hawes had needed to zone out with baseball and a beer.
“Before that, Madigan.”
“You don’t know?” Hawes thumbed the sensor by his door, entered his code on the keypad, and once the door unlocked, pushed inside. “You seem to know everything. To be everywhere.” The sudden spike of irritation surprised Hawes but didn’t stop him from rounding on Dante with his own query. “Where have you been, if you weren’t following me?”
Dante raised his hands, palms out. “Working on my end of this, then had dinner with my family.” He stood outside the door, waiting for Hawes to invite him in.
Smart. And enough time for Hawes to consider and dismiss the usual concerns. Dante had already spent an evening at his place, had had his back today at the office and with Lucas, and when it boiled right down to it, Hawes didn’t want to be alone tonight. He waved Dante inside.
“I didn’t follow you because I’m not your keeper,” Dante said as he closed the door. “You don’t need one, as you keep demonstrating. You seem tense, is all, for having come from a game the Giants won.”
Guess he hadn’t zoned out as well as he’d hoped. A stiffer drink, then. Hawes shrugged out of his suit coat, flung it toward the loft stairs, and made his way into the living room. Iris wove around his ankles, demanding attention, and he bent to give her a scratch. Once she moved on to Dante, Hawes righted himself and opened the built-in minibar in the cabinet next to the desk. He retrieved the squat bottle of Crown Royal Rye and two shot glasses.
“Would’ve figured you for a Macallan guy.” Dante skirted behind him, his knuckles brushing the curve of Hawes’s ass. “Something classier,” Dante continued as he rounded the couch and collapsed onto the middle cushion.
Hawes stood frozen. Intentional or not, Dante’s grazing touch had sent electricity crackling up his spine. If Dante had stopped behind him, if he’d rotated his hand the other way and cupped Hawes’s ass, Hawes wouldn’t have been able to stop himself from leaning into the promise of that touch.
Fuck, he was all over the place. Angry. Frightened. Impatient. Frustrated, in more than one respect. Not even the unusual steadying effect Dante had on him was working tonight.
Whisky and glasses in hand, Hawes closed the cabinet with his elbow. “One, this was world whisky of the year a few years back, and two, the expensive stuff is wasted on me.” He sank onto the cushion next to Dante. “I don’t drink enough to appreciate the difference. This or Jameson serves my purpose just fine.”
Dante relieved him of the glasses. “To get drunk?”
“Basically.” Hawes removed the decorative cork and poured them generous shots. He took his glass from Dante, threw back the shot, then poured another before setting the bottle on the coffee table. “Hospice visit took longer than anticipated.”
“Complications with Papa Cal?”
“Obviously.” Hawes winced at his snappish tone.
Dante didn’t flinch, but his gaze was more assessing than usual. “I’m not the enemy here.”
“How do I know that?”
The staredown that followed lasted a good half minute, until Dante broke it to toss back his shot. His lips puckered, then parted as he let out a sharp gasp, a common response to the spicy rye. Hawes’s nearly blinding need to throw a leg over Dante’s lap and swallow that gasp with his own mouth was not so common. He wasn’t sure he’d ever felt a spike of desire so strong.
Before Hawes could act on it, Dante removed the option by shifting forward to the edge of the couch. He set his empty glass on the table next to the bottle, then did the same with all his weapons, removing them one by one. Glock. Knife. Handcuffs. Tactical pen. Book, the next in the series. He took off his coat too and emptied his pockets. Keys, wallet, and phone.
“There,” he said. “I’m unarmed now.” He slid back, stretched an arm along the top of the couch, and crossed a long leg toward Hawes. “You and I both know you could take me either way, but for your peace of mind…”
Hawes chuckled bitterly. “I’m not sure even this”—he lifted his glass—“will give me peace of mind tonight.” Slumping into the soft cushions, Hawes sipped his second shot more slowly, savoring the burn on his tongue and down his throat. He imagined it melting away the glaciers that had flowed near the center of his chest today. Impossible, of course, as the first of those ice blocks had been formed almost two decades ago.
He finished the whisky and rested his head on top of the cushion, staring at the ceiling. Counting planks and light fixtures brought him no peace either. “Right now, I’m pretty sure I couldn’t take anyone.”
“How bad is he?” Dante said, accurately reading his distress.
“He told Rose that my parents are there, waiting for him in the room.” Hawes closed his eyes and recounted more of what the doctor had told them. “He’s not eating anymore, after he choked multiple times over the weekend. His body can’t even remember how to function properly.”
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br /> Dante tugged Hawes’s glass free from his hand and set it on the table. He scooted closer, judging by the fragrant waft of eucalyptus shampoo and the nearness of his lowered voice. “It’s a terrible disease.”
Hawes rotated his head and opened his eyes, meeting Dante’s sympathetic brown ones only a few inches away. “You know someone?”
“Uncle. He was this big Italian guy with a huge personality to match. Best cook in the family, and we’ve got a lot of good ones.” His unfocused eyes drifted over Hawes’s shoulder. “Saw him tonight. He’s lost half his weight, barely spoke to anyone, and struggled to remember the family lasagna recipe.”
Hawes laid a hand on Dante’s knee, briefly, before yanking it back, not trusting himself to resist the temptation to slide it higher. Not the time. He folded his hands in his lap. “No matter how much money we throw at it, Alzheimer’s kills faster than we can keep up with it.”
“You throw a lot at it, don’t you? Annual donations the past three years to charities that support Alzheimer’s research and to others that fund shelters for LGBTQ youth.”
“I don’t need all the money my trust provides. I used what I needed”—he gestured at their surroundings—“and found better uses for the rest.”
Dante lifted a hand and brushed back the overlong top hairs that were tickling Hawes’s forehead. “Careful, Madigan. Your soul is showing.”
Hawes’s eyes slipped shut as Dante’s fingers lingered on his temple. Finally, the calm steadiness he’d missed washed over him. Be it from Dante’s touch or the whisky, Hawes couldn’t say, but he didn’t pull away, unwilling to disturb the peace. “Some prince,” he mumbled.
“King, before long.”
And hello disturbance. A chasm opened beneath Hawes’s feet, knocking him back off-balance. He stood and stepped away to avoid it. “What if I don’t want to be?”
“A killer?”
“The king.” Hawes locked his hands behind his head and paced the area on the other side of the coffee table. “I don’t want to be king. Not if I have to destroy my soul again to do it.”
Dante uncrossed his legs and shifted forward, elbows on his knees. “Again?”
“I have the health care power of attorney. I ultimately have to make the decision if it comes to life support.” Hawes braced himself against the side of the ladder. “Again.” He closed his eyes against the flood of memories, and when that didn’t work, buried his face in his arm.
Dante caught on a second later and was up and off the couch, his footsteps short and fast, drawing closer with speed instead of his usual casual lope. A hand landed on Hawes’s hip, Dante’s voice and heat close. “You made the decision about your parents too, didn’t you?”
“My grandparents were out of town, laying low at one of the safe houses.” He swallowed hard. “I was sixteen.”
“Jesus, Hawes.” Dante slid his arm the rest of the way around Hawes’s waist in a loose sideways hug. He snuck his other hand under Hawes’s chin, nudging until Hawes lifted his face enough to cup his cheek. “What do you need?”
“I don’t want to be in control.” No decisions to make, no kingdom to rule, no bad guys to sort from the good. Tonight, freedom was the most settling thought there was, especially if it involved the man whose body was pressed alongside his.
“Do you trust me?” Dante said.
Hawes half nodded, half nuzzled Dante’s palm.
“Give it to me, then.”
Hawes’s eyes popped open, and an unexpected laugh bubbled out of him. “I’m not giving you control of my family’s empire.”
One corner of Dante’s mouth turned up in a sexy smirk. “I don’t want that either.” With his arm around Hawes’s waist, he shifted them so they were in front of the ladder, Hawes’s back against the rungs, Dante’s body blanketing his. The pressure, front and back, massaged away any lingering soreness from Ray’s hit last night. Not that Hawes would care when Dante’s long, strong fingers were skirting up the side of his face and into his hair, threading through the strands and cradling his scalp.
Hawes couldn’t look away, couldn’t stop his hands from curling into Dante’s gray tank and hauling him closer. “Please.”
“I want control of you.” Dante’s soft lips brushed the sharp right hinge of Hawes’s jaw. “Let me help you.” He moved to the other side. “Let me make you forget for a while.” Then to the crease at the bottom of Hawes’s chin. “Let go for me.”
Yes.
Hawes lowered his face the half inch needed to bring their lips together. And let go. Of the last twenty-four hours. Of the control he’d exercised over family, company, and fate today. Of himself, where Dante was concerned.
He parted his lips on a groan, and Dante swept inside, grazing teeth and tongue, and Hawes relished the attention, the invasion. He parried, sucked, and opened wider, angling to give Dante better access. Ripe for plunder, Hawes wanted nothing more than to be laid bare. He’d gladly surrender to Dante’s devouring mouth. To Dante’s warm, hard body blanketing every inch of his cold, sharp one. To his hips rocking an impressive erection against the one straining behind Hawes’s zipper.
Lost in the best kiss he’d had in years, Hawes didn’t register Dante grasping his wrists and lifting his arms above his head, not until Dante broke the kiss and curled Hawes’s fingers around the ladder rung. “Don’t let go.”
Hawes chased after Dante’s mouth. “I thought that’s what I was supposed to be doing.”
“I want you to hang on,” Dante whispered against his lips. “And let go for me.”
Yes.
Hawes was glad for the handhold when Dante’s lips skated off his mouth and traveled to his earlobe, nipping and tugging with his teeth. Knees weak, Hawes was half tempted to ditch standing altogether and hike his legs around Dante’s waist. The better to grind his cock against those abs. The stray thought vanished as soon as Dante moved from nipping his earlobe to tracing the shell of his ear with his tongue, from the narrow top, down to the lobe again, and behind it. As if the tongue wasn’t enough torture, the scruff of Dante’s beard lit the surrounding area on fire.
“God, yes, more like that.” Hawes rested his head on another rung, rolling it side to side so Dante could kiss and lick every inch of his throat. He didn’t give a flying fuck if the occasional suck and nip left marks. And when Dante’s tongue dipped into the crook of his neck, the groove made deeper by his pronounced clavicle, Hawes also didn’t give a flying fuck if the neighbors heard him scream.
“Yes, fuck, yes!”
Dante grinned. “Sensitive spot?”
Hawes lowered a hand and tangled it in Dante’s hair, the silky strands gliding through his fingers. He twisted them around his fist, holding Dante right where he wanted him. “Again,” he tried to order, tried to voice his desire, but between his strangled voice and the desperate rutting of his cock against Dante’s, the speed of which had increased with each kiss, his order came out closer to a plea.
Dante indulged him for one more dip of his tongue, one more nip of teeth, before he dropped a light kiss over the tortured skin. A shiver raced through Hawes. Dante chased it away with the molten look in his eyes and the gravel in his voice. “Who’s in control here?”
Challenge flared deep inside Hawes. The instinct to fight back was there, where earlier it had wavered. Dante had stoked it back to life by taking the reins. Wanting that flame to burn brighter, Hawes untangled his hand and lifted it back to the rung. Holding on and letting go, letting someone else drive so he could just feel, ceding control so he could regain it.
Dante rewarded him for the power given, starting with the top button of Hawes’s dress shirt and ending with the last. He kissed and licked every inch of exposed skin until he was on his knees, hands unfastening Hawes’s pants while his tongue rimmed Hawes’s belly button.
Like Hawes wanted him to rim a different hole. He closed his eyes, drowning in sensation. The pleasure intensified as Dante shoved down his pants and exposed his hip bones. Dante f
lared his fingers over them, tracing and teasing.
“Careful,” Hawes said. “They cut.”
“You are a pointy bastard.” Yet Dante didn’t seem remotely scared of Hawes’s sharp edges, tongue following in the path of his hands, all the way down to the patch of light-brown hair at the end of the trail above Hawes’s cock, which was woefully trapped beneath the waistband of his boxers.
Hand slipping off the rail again, Hawes pinched his puckered nipple, aiming to redirect his focus before he came in his shorts like a teenager.
Dante helped him out, yanking down the damnable boxers and finally freeing his cock. Hawes moaned in relief, then frustration, as Dante rose and stepped away, save for a single finger that traced the underside of Hawes’s erection.
“Do you want me to leave you here like this, cock out, hard and aching?” Dante circled the head and pressed lightly at Hawes’s slit, spreading the moisture there. “Dripping.” Abruptly, Dante removed his hand and took another step back. He gripped himself through his jeans.
Hawes groaned at the length and girth on display, making his mouth water and his asshole clench. He wanted it in both. He squeezed his nipple, hard, one last time, then put his hand back where it belonged.
“Better.” Dante closed the distance again, his smile predatory, and pressed his upturned lips to Hawes’s, plunging into his mouth once more. Hand between them, he palmed the underside of Hawes’s cock, moving it into position, and rutted his own against it, the denim friction sending Hawes’s senses into overdrive.
“Oh God, too much,” Hawes keened against his lips. “Too—”
Dante leaned far enough back to meet his eyes. Concern cooled the burning desire there. “Is it too much? I can stop.”
Hawes shook his head. “No, good idea. Just intense.”
“If it’s ever not, if you need control back—”