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

46. Cal Walker

T he sounds Ryan made as he came down my throat should be fucking illegal. By the time I was finished sucking him off, I was hard and leaking again. I didn’t think I would ever get enough of my sweet ginger baby.

After he came, he turned into a quivering puddle of goo, and I climbed up on the bed and lay next to him, pulling him into my chest.

We were both fully naked together for the first time, and it was making it difficult to behave. I wanted to fuck him so bad, but I wasn’t sure if he was ready to cross that line yet. He seemed to respond positively when I brushed my fingers over his asshole while I had been blowing him, but I didn’t want to just do it quickly before dinner with his mom and my sister waiting downstairs.

When it happened, I wanted to take my time with him.

Make it special.

I had never cared about making sex special before, but Ryan was so different from anyone I had ever met.

Despite how shy and unsure of himself he was in the bedroom, the way he held himself in his day-to-day life was so attractive to me.

He always seemed to be so confident and focused when he was working. He was all proper and organized. My baby was an adorable little control freak, and I loved watching him calculate his surroundings and make decisions. He was always so thoughtful and seemed to take the time to weigh the pros and cons of every little thing.

I wasn’t like that.

My brain just did whatever it wanted and made snap judgment calls that often got me into trouble.

It was partially why I loved taking control and dominating the shit out of my partners. Much like how Ryan wanted to relinquish control in bed, I sought it out. Because let’s be serious, outside of the bedroom, I had no idea what the fuck I was doing half the time and was just winging it.

Sex, on the other hand… I knew what the fuck I was doing with sex.

In my real life, Ryan made me feel grounded. Like I had an anchor that was finally sturdy enough to hold me down and keep me from floating away in the sea of chaos that was my fucking life.

Laying on our sides facing each other, I stroked his face and left a gentle kiss on his swollen lips. He closed his eyes and hummed, making a warm but very scary feeling well up in my chest.

“That was… amazing,” he murmured, and suddenly I felt like I was literally flying.

“You enjoyed yourself, baby?” I whispered, and he nodded, giving me one of his adorably shy smiles.

“We should do that all the time.”

“Don’t have to ask me twice.” I smirked. “I’ll suck you off anytime you want, gorgeous, just say the words.

He laughed and reached over to mirror the slow, languid strokes I was tracing down his cheek. I shivered under the gentle touch of his fingers and bit my lip.

Fuck, that felt good.

“I want to… to suck you, too,” he whispered. “I liked doing it. A lot.”

I smiled at him and gave him another gentle kiss.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. I didn’t know it could feel like that.”

“It gets even better, baby. There’s all kinds of things I want to do with you that I think you’ll like.”

He nibbled on his lip, and I swooned as his cheeks flushed red. I fucking loved that his complexion was so prone to blushing. It had become one of my personal missions to make him blush for me as much as possible.

“You look like you have questions.” I chuckled, and his already red cheeks darkened further.

“What kinds of things do you want to do with me?” he asked softly, and I was literally tingling with how cute and unsure he was.

“Well, one of these days, I would love to fuck you.” I kissed him, and he trembled, burying his face in my neck and circling his arms around my waist to pull me closer.

I grinned and wrapped my arms around him in return, holding him tight against me.

“Is that a yes?” I asked, burying my nose into his ginger hair and inhaling. He smelled like Old Spice and Head it didn’t change my situation.

Ryan stalked toward me, and my eyebrows shot up into my hairline. He cupped my face with a surprising amount of tenderness, considering how worked up he was.

“That’s not who you are, Cal.”

I frowned.

Uhm… come again?

“That’s quite literally who I am, Ryan. I’ve been doing this my whole life.”

This was a really weird conversation.

Why would he think I was anything other than a ruthless killer? We literally met because I was trying to fucking kill him. My mouth quirked in amusement despite the very serious look he was giving me.

His warm fingers danced across my jawline, and I bit back a shiver.

God, he just had a way of turning me into a useless puddle of nonsense.

“It’s not who you are, Cal. You’re not a killer. Not really.”

“I’m not?” I asked, my voice strangely quiet. He stepped even closer to me, skating his lips over mine so softly he was barely there.

“No. The real you is the man I found comforting that girl in the garden today,” he murmured. For some reason, my head was spinning, and I felt like my world was imploding.

“You’re kind, Cal. You’re selfless, and you always put everyone’s needs before your own. You’ve spent your entire life giving up everything to keep your sisters safe. You buy gnomes for Naomi because you want her to know you’re thinking of her. You put Cass through law school. You stood up for me when that woman was losing her shit on me for no reason… then you apologized to me after I yelled at you by buying me a bouquet of my favorite flowers!”

I chuckled, feeling all kinds of warm and fuzzy inside. “Yeah, but I also tried to kill you. That has to cancel out all that other stuff.”

Ryan glared at me, tightening his hold on my jaw hard enough that I swallowed.

“Yeah, you did. Because you thought I was a monster that was ruthlessly beating up a little boy. You were trying to protect him, Cal. Because that’s what you fucking do. You try so hard to protect and help everyone around you, but who’s protecting you?”

I felt my mouth part, but for the first time in like… ever, I didn’t know what to say. There were literally no words in my mouth, and my normally insanely busy brain just felt empty.

Ryan brushed his thumb over my chin and kissed me fiercely, nipping my bottom lip hard enough that I groaned. Before I could deepen the kiss, he pulled away, locking his furious, brandy eyes on me.

“It’s fucked up that this Damian guy took such a kind, gentle soul and turned him into a fucking killing machine. You were made to help people, Cal. Not hurt them. And I will never forgive the man who fucking took that away from you.”