The Mercenary and the Mortician (The Silent Hollow #1)

38. Cal Walker

I helped Ryan up and wrapped my arm around his waist in an effort to steady him on the walk back to the car. Outside of the beatings we had both taken, I was assuming his ass was relatively sore, considering that was his first real experience with anal penetration.

He tried to brush me off a few times, but I was my usual stubborn self and forced him to accept my help until he was tucked into the passenger seat of the G-Wagon.

We had laughed and kissed on the ground together in the aftermath of our depraved little altercation, but now Ryan seemed to have become pensive and despondent again.

I didn’t like it.

I reached across him to buckle his seatbelt, and he scowled at me.

“I can do it,” he snapped, and I grinned at him.

“I know you can, baby, but I want to take care of you a little. That was intense.”

He held my gaze for a long moment but finally nodded, leaning his head back on the seat and allowing me to fasten him in.

I jogged around the car, hopped into the driver’s side, and punched the ignition before draping my arm around the back of Ryan’s seat and craning my neck so I could reverse back out into the road.

Once we were back on the two-lane street heading toward Cleveland, I gave him a cautious glance.

“How are you feeling about what just happened?” I asked.

Ryan shrugged, crossing his arms over his chest.

“I don’t know. I don’t really want to talk about it,” he said, though his voice was sounding quiet and vulnerable.

I snorted. “Well, too fucking bad. If we’re going to have rough sex like that, you’re going to have to talk to me about it. Communication is really important.”

He shot me an angry glare. “Don’t act like you would listen to me anyway. You straight up said there would be no safe words if I chose to fight you on it.

Fuck. I did say that, didn’t I?

Ryan: 1, Cal: -2

That’s two fuck ups for me, right? Who’s keeping track of this?

Probably Naomi.

I groaned and leaned my head back in my seat, shooting him an exasperated look.

“That was before. You weren’t mine yet. Now that you’ve admitted to being mine, we need to set up some rules and boundaries. I need to know what you like, what you don’t like, what are hard and soft boundaries… all that stuff.”

Ryan was staring down at his hands awkwardly, his cheeks red as cherries beneath the bruises.

I frowned. “Is this about the gay thing? Or is it about the fact that I choked you with my belt and finger fucked your ass until you came?”

Ryan groaned and covered his face with his hands, sliding down in his seat.

“If it’s the gay thing I told you already, I’m not going to pressure you to come out of the closet. That’s your choice, and you can make it when you’re ready.”

“No. It’s not the gay thing… well, maybe it is a little bit, but just because it never once occurred to me that I might be, and that’s throwing me for a loop more than anything,” he finally admitted, and my chest loosened a bit. At least he was talking to me now.

“So, it’s the fact that you enjoy rough sex?” I pressed, watching him subtly out of the corner of my eye.

He shrugged.

“It’s a lot of things, Cal.”

“Like what? Tell me. I won’t judge you.”

He dropped his hands from his face but still couldn’t look at me. He stared resolutely out the window.

“I don’t know anything about you, Callum… Well, I know that you like tea and fancy cars and that shitty robot music.”

I burst out laughing. “It’s called dubstep.”

Ryan just gave me an unamused look and rolled his eyes. “It’s horrible. It sounds like robots fornicating.”

I felt my eyes widen and my lips part. “That would be… awesome.” I breathed, imagining how dope it would be to have a music video with robots jerking each other off to a Knife Party song. What color would robot cum be? Would it be like car oil? Or maybe that clear stuff they use to keep big computers cool…

My reaction to Ryan’s impression of my taste in music seemed to tug a reluctant grin on Ryan’s lips, though he winced. I immediately felt bad. His face was looking worse and worse by the minute.

Fuck. I had gotten carried away… Why was I fucking like this!?

“Whatever you say.” Ryan chuckled, settling back into his seat and closing his eyes. I hated how stiff he was. I wanted to draw him a hot bath and rub his shoulders until they were loose again. I wanted to kiss all his bruises better and tell him I was sorry for hurting him, despite the fact that I knew he had wanted it at the time.

“But I also know that you kill people, Callum. Do you know how hard it is for someone like me to wrap my head around it? How scary it is? I thought you were going to kill me today. Clearly, I have complicated feelings about you, and I think if you were anyone else, it would be easier for me to accept. But… I don’t know who you are, what you do, or who you work for. I don’t know if having a relationship with you will put my family in danger… put my father’s business in danger.”

He pulled down the car visor and looked at his face in the little mirror, grimacing.

“Like, look at my face.” He sighed. “Almost every day since I’ve met you, my face has suffered a new bruise.” He turned pleading eyes on me.

“How am I supposed to explain this to clients? When people come to meet with me, it’s usually after they have suffered the worst day of their lives, Cal. The last thing they need is a funeral director who looks like he moonlights as fucking Rocky Balboa.”

I snorted and resisted the urge to make a joke about being the Adrian to his Rocky.

“Okay. No more shots to the face, hard boundary.” I smirked at him, trying to lighten the mood. He let out a low chuckle.

“I suppose that’s a start,” he grumbled. “But the real issue is why do I keep letting myself get into these situations with you? This isn’t me. I’m always put together. I never have to worry about the business because I always have it under control. I always have a plan. ” He cut me a hard look. “You, Cal, were not part of my plan.”

We sat in silence for a moment as I digested his words. It was difficult for me to understand his reservations because, for me, this was all very simple. In the words of the infamous Ariana Grande — I see it, I like it, I want it, I got it.

I saw Ryan.

I liked Ryan.

I wanted Ryan.

I got Ryan.

If someone tried to take Ryan from me, I would just delete them. Murder ‘em. Wipe ‘em off the face of the fucking planet.

Simple.

It seems Ryan’s brain didn’t work that way. He tried to coexist with the things I would normally just murder or remove from my life without a second thought. He needed to control threats, whereas I just needed to eliminate them.

If I wanted to be a part of his life, I was going to have to help him control the things that were getting in the way of me integrating into his life. I couldn’t just bulldoze through things with him, or he would never be happy with me.

I knew this. I just didn’t know how to do it. Never in my life had I felt the need to try to blend in.

I didn’t flex.

I didn’t bend.

I was always just Cal, take me or leave me.

Looking at Ryan now, who was more tired and broken than I was comfortable with, I realized that if I wanted him, I was going to have to bend for him. At least a little bit.

“Okay. Well, I may not have been part of the plan, Ryan, but life is messy. I don’t know about you, but my plans rarely play out the way they’re supposed to. You just have to roll with it.”

He sighed. “You make it sound like it’s easy.”

I shrugged. “It is easy. You just have to get out of that sexy ginger head of yours and loosen up. Everything’s going to work out.”

He gave me a look that was a cross between a scowl and bashfulness.

“How am I supposed to ‘get out of my head’ after what just happened?” He snapped. “I’ve never done anything like that before.”

“Like what?” I asked, knowing I was being kind of a dick but wanting him to face his feelings for once.

“Like… that! I’ve never gotten in a fistfight that’s led to sex. Normally, I avoid fistfights altogether unless it’s for a workout…I’ve never… I’ve never had anyone choke me before or hold me down and… and…”

“Play with your asshole?” I offered, unable to keep myself from grinning, though I did my best to hide it from him.

“Fine, yes! It’s humiliating. Why did I do that? Even worse, why did I… why did I…”

“Like it?”

He groaned and hid his face from me again, sliding further down in his seat like he wanted a hole to open up and swallow him whole.

Keeping my eyes on the road, I reached over and tentatively brushed my fingers through his hair. I held my breath, waiting to see if he would jerk away from my touch. When he didn’t, I gently stroked him, enjoying the soft, shuddering breath he released as my fingers grazed his nape.

“Well, I think it makes a lot of sense that you would enjoy being forced to submit during sex, Ryan.”

“Yeah, how do you figure that?” he asked, peeking over at me. His tone was sarcastic, but his eyes told me he was really listening.

“You’re a control freak. It’s pretty common for people who are dominant in their day-to-day lives to crave being dominated in bed. It gives you a way to escape. It lets you give control to someone else for a change. You don’t have to think; all you have to do is relax and let your partner make you feel good.”

I glanced at him, allowing my smirk to grow. “And I plan to make you feel really fucking good, Ryan.”

“It makes me feel weak.” He whispered so quietly I almost didn’t hear him. I frowned.

“You’re not weak for knowing what you want and allowing yourself to have it, Ryan. What you want in bed is not an accurate representation of who you are in real life.

“Just look at me. In real life, I’m basically a golden retriever. If you met me on the street, you wouldn’t know I’m actually a black cat sadist.” I winked at him.

“Or a murderer.” He sighed.

“Or that,” I agreed shamelessly.

He peeked at me hesitantly, biting his lip. “I did like it… you know. Being dominated by you.”

“I know you did, baby,” I purred, brushing a thumb lightly over his bruised cheek and giving him an affectionate smile.

“If you want to be dominated, you came to the right place. I’m a top, through and through. It’s like fucking kismet that you’re a sub. We were meant to be, baby.”

Ryan was still staring at me funny. “We’re… are we… together? Like a couple?” he asked, the blush in his face spread all the way to his hairline.

God, he was so fucking cute.

I raised an eyebrow at him and shrugged.

“I won’t allow you to touch anyone else, so call it whatever the fuck you want, but you’re mine.”

He scowled. “Well, are you going to be fucking anyone else?” he snapped, and I bit back an amused chuckle.

“Would that bother you?”

“Yes,” he said without any hesitation. “You can’t tell me I’m not allowed to see other people, then slut it up yourself.”

I burst out laughing. “Slut it up!? Jeeze, ginger snap, we don’t slut shame in this car.”

He scoffed. “I don’t care what you did before, but if we’re doing whatever this is, I don’t need to worry about getting any nasty diseases from your butt whores.”

“Butt whores!” I was full-blown laughing now.

“And I want you to get tested,” he snarked, crossing his arms stubbornly over his chest while I wiped tears of laughter away from my eyes.

“I was just tested two weeks ago, and I haven’t been with anyone since. I think I have a picture on my phone I can show you.”

He eyed me suspiciously. “I find it hard to believe that you’ve gone two weeks without sex.”

“Believe it, ginger snap. You’re right. Normally, I need to get laid more than that, but Kyle’s murder held me over. Besides, since I laid eyes on you, I haven’t been interested in anyone else,” I admitted, glancing at him again so he could see the truth on my face.

He was biting his swollen lip again, looking unsure. However, it was unclear whether he was unsure about the fact that I was clean or the fact that I had admitted Kyle’s murder held me over from needing sex.

“Would you like me to get tested again just for peace of mind?”

He thought about it, then shook his head. “No. I believe you.”

That made me smile.

Omg. He trusted me! Swoon!

“Now, for the rest of it, I wasn’t kidding before about setting some hard boundaries. We got carried away today, but I agree that we should avoid marks on faces from now on for the sake of your business,” I said, turning the car in the direction of my townhouse.

Ryan examined his face in the car mirror again with a grimace.

“I would appreciate that. I have no idea what I’m going to do about this. I have another service tomorrow, and I look like I tripped and fell into a meat grinder…”

“I think I know someone who can help with that.” I winked, and Ryan gave me a curious look, but I just smirked at him as I pulled into a suburban area.

“I can’t promise I won’t mark you in other places, though. I murmured, turning onto my street.

Ryan gave me a careful look as if he wanted to ask me more about where I planned on marking him but was still too shy.

“Where are you taking me?” he asked quietly, frowning at our quaint surroundings.

“I’m taking you to meet my sister,” I said as I parked in the driveway of our townhouse. Quietly, I noted that Vox was parked down the street in my—well, I guess his— red Aston Martin.

I frowned. I could see his bleached head in the driver’s seat. That was interesting. I hadn’t asked him to swing by. Whipping out my phone, I fired off a text.

Cal:

What are you doing here?

Vox:

*laptop emoji*

Cal:

If you were waiting for me, you know you could have just waited inside, right?

Vox:

*Eye roll emoji*

I chuckled and glanced up just in time to see he had started the car and was now driving away.

Weird.

Getting out of the G-Wagon, I went to Ryan’s side to help him out, but he was already nearly at the front walk, his brandy eyes wide as he took in his surroundings. My lips quirked at the way his gaze seemed to pause on each of the garden gnomes he passed.

“I thought I already met your sister?” he asked, and I grinned.

“That was my older sister.” I winked and got to work unlocking the front door. “I also have a younger sister. She’s much less prickly than Cass, and luckily for you…”

I swung open my front door and gestured for Ryan to walk in.

“She’s excellent with makeup.”