Mutual Possession (Nine Tenths of the Law #1)

7. Spencer

Chapter seven

Spencer

There’s a personal car park behind the funeral home, for staff only, gated and hidden from the rest of the world. The high security has nothing to do with their regular clientele and everything to do with people like us. A lot of undocumented bodies get passed through here. Those that deserve to be there, some that don’t. None of the jobs we do make the news. Quick, quiet, and discreet. The whole point of our team is to do what no one else can, go where no one has access, and to get it done without fuss and without revealing ourselves to the world. Sanctioned monsters that have the right to do whatever needs to be done without red tape weighing us down. Justice has a lot of different faces.

Maverick Burke has run the place for six years now, ever since his father, Trevor, retired. A family business, in more than one way. Trevor’s someone I’ve known my entire life and one who knows as many secrets about me as Kendrick does. The father I’d never had and the only reason I’m here today. Maverick, his sister, Abigail, and I all grew up together, and we were introduced to this world of shadows at the same time. I watched Hunter and his brother working long before they saw me.

Kendrick flicks his door open and drops a foot out before turning back to me. “Alright?”

“Do you think Six is hot?” I ask, instead of getting out.

“What?”

I know he heard me, but I repeat it anyway. “Do you think Six is hot?”

“I think ‘pretty’ is more accurate, but sure. He’s attractive if you’re into that sort of thing.”

“That sort of thing?” What does that mean? Six, with his symmetrical boy-next-door face and perfectly styled dark hair, belongs on a magazine. One labelled “I’m just here to fuck shit up and eat your lollipops,” but a magazine, nonetheless. Maybe one for sword owners. Bianca is sexier than he is.

“If someone tries to order me around in bed, I’m more likely to punch them than get hard.”

What does he look like in bed? It’s the one thing I don’t know about him. The only door closed to me because I’ve never tried to open it. Does he look different covered in sweat from sexual exertion in comparison to sweat from other physical activities? I’ve seen pleasure in his gaze, what I take from him without giving back. It’s not the same as mutual desire, is it? A shared experience he’s had with others, but not with me.

“Has someone tried to do that before?” I ask. I’ll need a name so I can find them. Cut off their hands for touching what doesn’t belong to them. Cut out their tongue for daring to give orders to a man that should only ever take them from me.

He doesn’t answer straightaway, looking at me like he can figure out where I’m leading him if he just stares hard enough. I don’t even know where I’m leading us. Rarely anything that comes out of my mouth in his presence is planned. Everywhere else, words spoken are calculated to give me the result that I want. Actions speak louder than words, and my words are finely honed weapons. With him? None of the rules apply.

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Am I sure ?” he asks incredulously. A muscle in his jaw twitches. “I’d remember. Why, you want a list?”

“Of what?”

“All the people I’ve slept with.”

Fuck, no. That’s a lot of blood on my hands. Even Hunter and Maverick would have a hard time sweeping that under the rug. I’d become the very thing that I hunt, and I would do it without a single regret.

“Do you want mine ?” I counter. I’d be hard-pressed to remember any of the women, the very few of them there have been. Not what they looked like, what they smelled like, or how it felt. Not even their names. He’s the only thing that occupies my thoughts. The desire to be with anyone else is non-existent and has been for a long time.

I think about him when I’m with him, when I’m alone, every moment of the day.

“Thinking of you with anyone else makes me want to set fire to the entire city,” Kendrick says bluntly. “What the fuck are we talking about this for? There better be a good goddamn reason.”

“It bothers me.” Like I want to crawl out of my own skin.

“What does?”

“That other people have touched you.”

“You’ve touched me.”

It’s not the same. I don’t touch him like they did. It’s never bothered me this much before. He’s with me now, and that won’t ever change. The murderous thoughts about past partners have always been brief, tempered by the knowledge that they’re in the past, and the only future for Kendrick is me.

Lately, it hasn’t been enough. I want to own him. Come over his chest and rub it into his skin until he smells like me. There’s nothing sexual in it; it’s ownership. A warning to everyone else that he’s off-limits. That he’s mine.

“Spence?”

“Do you miss sex?”

Kendrick gets back into the car and crowds me, his forearm braced against my headrest. “What the hell is going on with you?”

“Do you?” I insist. Does he stay awake at night thinking about it, wishing I would loosen the reins so that he can go and find some piece of ass to fuck to relieve the tension? My knuckles go white around the steering wheel. I need to start following him around so that I can stop that from happening. Put a tracker on his phone. He’s lucky I haven’t already.

“No, Spence, I don’t.”

“Why not?”

“Jesus fucking Christ, are you trying to piss me off right now?”

“Is it working?” Being angry at me means he’s focusing solely on me, and I’ll take whatever I can get. “Why won’t you answer my question?”

“I fucking did.”

“With the truth.”

He fists my hair and yanks me toward him, our lips a hair’s breadth from each other. Having him this close brings me to life like I’ve been electrocuted. “It is the truth, you psychotic asshole. I don’t miss it, I don’t want it, because it can’t compare to what you make me feel and what you give me. It never will, and it’s not worth losing you over. Nothing is.”

God, that’s exactly what I needed to hear. I wet my lips, my tongue flicking over his at the same time. “I don’t give you anything.”

“You give me everything . More than I deserve.” He kisses me then, the first time he’s ever initiated the contact himself. He doesn’t ask permission, and his tongue demands entrance, slipping into my mouth. We’ve never kissed like this. Not this forcefully, with this kind of intent or this deep .

Holy fuck, it’s incredible. With a moan, I pull him even closer, the taste of him invading my every sense. Why haven’t we done this before? It’s so much better than the cursory kisses I’ve demanded for years. They pale in comparison to the visceral way he’s making me respond.

It’s rough, and messy, with anger poured into it like gasoline on a flame.

The satisfaction of being this close to him makes the lack of lust pooling in my stomach an insignificant detail. It’s so much more than that. It’s a direct line to his fucking soul , and I plan to devour all of it. Fisting the sides of his jacket, I pull him even closer, trying to crawl inside him.

The kiss softens, and he tilts his head, changing the angle. His grip on my hair eases, and it shifts gear into something less manic but no less powerful. His mouth opens wide on every slide and stroke of his tongue, pulling whimpered sounds from deep in my chest. He’s never been this forceful, and fucking hell: I’ll be demanding it from now on. He doesn’t get to give me this and then take it away.

His hand lands on my soft dick, and he jolts away as if burned. He retreats from me, leaving me panting and aching for him.

“I’m sorry,” he gasps out, pulling away from me. “Fuck, I’m sorry.”

His lips, slick with my spit, all red and puffy, are begging for me to take another taste. Just one more. Right. As if once will ever be enough.

When I lick my own lips, I can taste him. “For what?” He better not be apologising for that kiss, because I’ll punch him.

“You’re not—” He gestures down. “This isn’t—it’s not—” He cuts off and squeezes his eyes shut, dropping back against his seat. His chest heaves, and I want to lick the red flush over his cheeks, see if it’s as warm as it looks. “ Fuck ,” he breathes out, like he’s in pain.

“You didn’t like it.” A different kind of ache sets itself up in my chest, one a hell of a lot less pleasant. A dull thud of pain at the idea that he didn’t like it.

He lets out a startled laugh. “You’re kidding me, right?”

Does it sound like I’m kidding?

He sobers and turns his head, still resting against the back of his seat. “I’m hard as a rock, Spence. That’s what you do to me. You make me want to do so many goddamn depraved things to you. Do you understand that? There’s nothing friendly about the thoughts I have. I want to strip you and make you scream for me.”

I swallow around a lump in my throat. We’ve never explicitly talked about this before. Not like this. “I know.” Of course I know. I provoke it because it makes me feel good. Because knowing he wants me means that I have all the pieces of him. And I’m greedy enough to thrive on it.

“And you—” Another short, sharp laugh. “You’re not even hard.”

“I—” I don’t know what to say to that. Is that a deal breaker? That kiss was worlds better than any sex I’ve ever had. Any soft woman I’ve ever touched. It’s the most pleasurable experience I’ve ever had. Even the chaste ones are because they’re a connection to him that’s mine alone. Why does it matter if it made me hard or not?

He shoves his door open wide. “C’mon, we need to go inside and get this done so we can go back to HQ.”