Holiday Scars (Quinlan Empire)

Prelude

Blade

I like watching a man die.

My partner, who is also my best friend’s brother? Not so much.

“Come on,” I growl and press my mouth to Jett’s lips, driving air into his lungs.

Terror rips through me. Those lips are cold. Too cold. Firm, but still...soft.

“Breathe, damn it.” With my palms pressed to his sternum over his soaked shirt, I count off compressions, thanking fuck I took a CPR course.

Icy water drips from my head and beard onto my arms and hands, rattling me. He’s not responding. Either I suck at this, or I got to Jett too late.

We’d been tracking a stolen shipment of guns to a Brooklyn dock, looking for a boat with the scabs who stole it. Then Jett, in all his stubborn glory, decided he could handle the slippery catwalk over the water by himself.

One rotten plank later, and he fell in. The boat took off, and Jett was lost in the churning waves. When he didn’t surface, I dove in. Found him unconscious from being knocked against the pilings.

“Do not die on me.” I tilt his head back and seal my mouth over his again.

The taste of salt, copper, and something purely Jett fills me, forcing a reaction under my skin I wasn’t expecting.

I go still seconds before his chest rises and a violent cough breaks from his throat.

Jett twists his face to the side and spits out a mouthful of water before looking up at me.

“Fucking fuck.” I rest on the wooden dock, my hands on either side of his head, my stiff shoulders finally softening.

“Jesus, Blade,” he rasps between rough breaths. “If you wanted to kiss me, all you had to do was ask.”

Relief crashes through me so hard it hurts.

That was a joke. Right?

“You’re welcome,” I mutter, shoving wet hair out of his eyes.

He’s shivering, his lashes clumped, that smart-ass grin flickering in spite of the blue tint to his lips. The icy temperature catches up to me from the unexpected late November dive into the East River.

The adrenaline fades from my veins, and suddenly we’re just two wet men on a pier in the dim wash of moonlight with me still straddling his hips, my hands still on his chest.

His heart is hammering under my palms. His warmth and color are returning. He’s alive. Very much alive. I should move, but I don’t.

Jett’s smirk falters, replaced by something quiet and searching. “Are you going to get off me, or is this a date now?”

He coughs again before I can remind him to be careful what he’s asking for. He knows I’m gay, and I could completely ruin him for women if he gave me a chance.

Now is not the time to bring that up.

“Screw you, you unappreciative fuck,” I say instead to keep up the ruse that I don’t want him.

Even though I do. Jett is hot as fuck. I’ve caught myself staring at his mouth, picturing him sucking my dick. But he’s my work partner, and if I asked for a blow job and he said no, that would make things awkward.

Jett is also Dirk’s brother. I’d rather not lose the two people who mean the most to me in one clip because of one bad sexual decision to make a move on Jett.

I already lost Stavros. But he never meant that much to me, other than a steady fuck and someone to split the rent on an apartment I couldn’t otherwise afford.

“Blade, I was kidding.” Jett sits up after I move off him.

I swallow hard, forcing a grin that doesn’t reach my stinging eyes. My heart is still rattled. Jett’s mouth on mine, the feel of his lips, and the jolt when he breathed again. Too real. “Don’t make a habit of needing my mouth.”

Jett’s face scrunches, and his lips part to say something. For a second, I stupidly think he might say he felt something, too. That something shifted when our lips touched.

But I cut him off, not trusting what will come out of his mouth. The guy almost died thirty seconds ago. His brain is still deprived of oxygen, and he may have a concussion. Trackers for the Irish Mob don’t go to the hospital for a bump on the head. We’re tough bastards, we walk it off.

“We need to get out of these wet threads and grab a drink.” I offer him a hand up.

We hoof it to my car and change out of the soaked clothes and into dry ones from the go-bag I keep for us. I don’t look at Jett’s body or his mouth again. I can’t.

If I show him what almost broke loose in me on that pier, I’ll do something I can’t take back.