24. North
Chapter 24
North
“ S o, kitty, do you have any friends as hot as you who can handle crazy the way you can?” Wylder’s voice comes out smooth and charming, and I wonder if I’m going to end up killing my brother tonight, especially when I see the slightest flush touch Ranen’s cheeks at the way the fucker smiles at him.
It’s a big, bright white smile. And I know for a fact it’s all for show, because Wylder is arguably more dangerous than I am. He’s better at hiding in plain sight, better at pretending he’s normal.
I would probably be more upset, but Ranen leans against me when he answers, dropping his head onto my shoulder as he pushes away the plate of food he just finished. “I could probably introduce you to my friend Olly.”
I want to roll my eyes at the name, but… that would be good, wouldn’t it? If my brother was busy wearing Olly out, Olly might decide that he doesn’t need Ranen’s attention as much as he does now.
“That’s a great idea.” I say, beaming brightly.
“I mean, I’m not sure if Olly would really be able to handle the news that you’re a killer, but…” Ranen trails off, but Wylder is already smiling and handing his phone over to Ranen.
“Why don’t you take down my number and give it to your friend. Punch his in for me so I know it’s him calling.” When Ranen opens his mouth, Wylder cuts him off. “Don’t worry, I won’t call until he does. I’m just… particular about who I answer.”
I can tell when he understands, because his mouth falls into the cutest little ‘oh’ shape, and he nods. When he hands Wylder back his phone after grabbing his number, I push back from the table and bring Ranen with me.
“I think it’s about time we head out. Wylder, you’re going to handle the apartment, right?”
The smile on his face only falters for a second, but he nods.
“Yeah, don’t worry about it. I’ll call you and let you know when everything’s clear.” He stands and Dad gives him a pat on the back as he walks past.
“Be careful.” Dad’s voice is softer than ours. He’s mostly been quiet during dinner, but he seemed happy to engage in conversation with Ranen whenever the chance arose.
I think he’s honestly just happy to have his family together again. It’s been a while since the last time Wylder came home. And now there’s Ranen…
And shit, Ranen is part of the family too. Before I have to question that, Dad comes around the table and actually pulls him into a hug.
“And you, make sure you keep North in line, all right? I really don’t want another call in the middle of the night about a body.” Dad’s voice is teasing, but Ranen’s cheeks still go a little pink.
“Sorry Atlas. I promise, I’ll… uh… keep him away from sharp objects. Even though he didn’t… use one… on…” Ranen trails off, looking back at me with a sheepish grin that makes something in my chest go warm.
“It’s all right. I’ll be careful from now on, Dad.”
And I will be… I’ll make sure from now on that every decision I make is made with keeping Ranen safe in mind.
He’s a part of this now too.
I’m not sure how I feel about what’s happening. On one hand, it’s amazing that my family seems so accepting of Ranen knowing our secret. I’m not sure if they can sense the sincerity radiating off him or what, but his landlord is worm food and Wylder said he’d go back to Ranen’s apartment to make sure there were no traces of our crime left.
If half the reason I asked him to do that was so he could double-check that there was nothing incriminating in Mr. Barlowe’s apartment or office, I don’t need to tell Ranen that. The less he has to think about it, the better.
Which means we can’t go back to his apartment until morning. Wylder is very good at clean-up, and we probably could go back in a few hours, but I want Ranen to relax… and I’m positive my brother will still be there, waiting to ask more questions.
If I have to hear him call Ranen kitty one more time, I might explode.
I turn down the offer from Dad for us to stay in the guest room and opt to rent a hotel for the night instead. I could take Ranen back to my house, but… I want to make sure it’s nice for him.
That’s a strange thought.
I’d never cared about what my hookups thought about my place before, and I’ve taken people back to the house a few times. The only thing I’d worried about then was making sure I didn’t have anything incriminating lying around, but I was meticulous about not leaving any evidence behind, and I didn’t make kills at my house.
I was usually very good at not getting caught.
It was just Ranen… Ranen made everything different.
“We really can just go back to the apartment,” he finally says, and I shake my head.
“It’s better if we’re out of the way while Wylder makes sure there’s nothing left behind to worry about.” At least it was a half-truth. If the rest of it was the fact that I need him alone, I need to process what had happened between us—the way he said he loved me, the way he proved it by being beside me every step of the way in getting rid of the body I’d made for him…
Well, I could worry about that later.
I pull up to the hotel and make it around the car in time to take Ranen’s hand as he hops out. He smiles up at me, but I can see the way today has weighed on him. Maybe he hasn’t complained at all, but it’s been a lot.
Of course it has. I don’t know anyone else who would have been able to handle everything thrown at them today with any of the grace that he has.
It makes me want to be alone with him even more.
He leans against me as I pay the woman at the front desk for our room, and by the time we get into the elevator, he’s practically wrapped himself around me.
“Long day, hm?” My voice comes out softer than usual, and Ranen nods where he’s nuzzled against my arm.
“Yeah, a little bit.” He sounds so sweet when he talks, and I can’t really stop myself when I slip my arms around him and turn him so I can take his mouth with mine. I don’t care if someone comes onto the elevator and sees us. I don’t care what anyone thinks.
I just know if I have to spend another minute without touching Ranen, without showing him how much I fucking worship him for how he’s handled things today, I’ll die.
“Ranen?” I murmur it against his lips, pleased to feel the way he sighs in disappointment when I pull back to speak.
“Hm?”
“Ranen…” I murmur it again and brush kisses along his jawline so I can press my mouth to his ear.
“North?”
“I love you.”
A little shiver runs through his body, but I can feel it in mine too. I never thought I would say those words—never thought I could feel those words—but I feel it so deeply for Ranen that it’s like its own living, breathing piece of me. It’s voracious with want, burning with desire. It’s fire and ferocity—a beast with a beating heart—and that tempo echoes the thunder of Ranen’s pulse.
It’s everything I’ve been missing my entire life, and I know now that’s because it was all there, in Ranen’s eyes. In his smile, his innocence—in his very soul.
Waiting for me to find him.
Waiting for me to love him.
I’m so enraptured by the way his pupils dilate that I don’t hear the elevator doors slide open until someone behind us clears their throat. Ranen flushes again, and I turn to glare at the older man standing there.
Whatever expression I have on my face must not be much of a mask, because the color slowly drains from his complexion and he mutters unintelligibly, then apologizes and heads to the stairwell.
“Come on.” I’m already pulling Ranen out of the elevator and toward our room. My fingers are sliding beneath his shirt before I have the door open, and I’m pulling the fabric off before I have it locked behind us.
“Need you.” Ranen’s voice comes out soft and breathy, more demanding than I’m used to. Maybe he can feel it too—the tension drawing in a sharp line from my chest to his, the way today has been so much… has meant so much .
I want to show him how much it meant to me , how much he means to me. I want him to know that when I said I loved him, it wasn’t just for a little while.
It was forever.
I pull him into the bathroom, stripping him out of his clothes on the way.
“What are you doing?” he asks again, but he isn’t fighting me on it. The only fight he puts up is his fingers pulling my shirt over my head. I make quick work of stripping the rest of the way, and take advantage of the fact that I booked us a suite, so there’s plenty of space when I shove him under the spray of water and instantly drop to my knees in front of him.
I draw his cock between my lips while he’s still only half hard, and my hands reach blindly for the soap as I suck him hard and fast until he hits the back of my throat and I can hear the low little moans punching out of his chest. His fingers thread through my hair, and he lets out another sharp gasp when I move my soap-slicked digits between his cheeks and start massaging his hole.
This is good. Fuck, it’s good to touch him, to taste him, to feel the way he’s trembling and ready to fall apart.
It’s even better now that those words have left my lips.
I love you—and it means that he knows I’m doing this because I want to show him.
I love you—and it means that I’m the only one who is ever going to get to touch him like this again.
I love you—and it means the low gasp that tears from his throat when I press inside him and the way he whines my name is a song I get to hear for the rest of my life.
I fuck him slowly with my fingers, spreading the soap and thoroughly cleaning him while I take him to the back of my throat and swallow hard around him. Ranen nearly buckles under the touch, even though I’m being careful and making sure I don’t hurt him with only liquid soap for lube. He rocks his body back, fucking himself on my hand and pivoting his hips forward to dive into my mouth.
I love the way he’s bold—the way he’s taking what he wants. I love the way he holds on to me like I’m the only thing keeping him from flying apart.
Fuck, I love everything about him.
When he starts to shake above me, I pull back with a low groan and watch him nearly collapse against the shower wall. When his eyes flutter open, they narrow to slits.
“Why did you stop? I was almost—” His soft whine cuts off with a gasp when I lean forward, sucking one of his balls into my mouth and rolling it greedily before slapping his ass.
“Because I need to be inside you. I need to feel you coming on my cock, Ranen.”
I see it when his tip dribbles precum from my words alone, and I groan.
“Fuck, you’re so perfect.” I drag the shower head down and rinse him clean—I don’t want the taste of soap in my mouth, and I know I’m not going to be able to keep myself from tasting all of him. As soon as I’m done, I drag him into the bedroom and push him back against the sheets.
He looks up at me with wide eyes as I crawl on top of him, still dripping from the shower. “We don’t have any lube, but I can—”
“Let me take care of that.” I drop down between his legs and draw him back into my mouth. His back instantly arches off the bed, and the feeling of his cock pulsing and jerking against my tongue lets me know that this isn’t going to take very long. I delve my fingers back between his cheeks and tease his hole.
That slight pressure seems to push him over the edge, because he lets out a shout and comes in my mouth. I suck hard, drawing out every last drop, every twitch and whine from him that I can take, then I push his legs up and spread him wide, using my tongue and the way I’ve already worked him open to feed his cum into his sweet little ass, slicking his hole and spattering it against his cheeks.
A low groan tears out of Ranen’s throat, and he gasps when I let the rest of his spill dribble from between my lips and onto my fingers so I can use them to fuck it inside him. He whimpers, his hands threading through his hair and pulling as I peg his prostate over and over again until his already spent cock gives another jerk in front of me.
I’ll get another orgasm from him before I’m finished.
Once he’s slicked and soaked with his own pleasure on the inside, I crawl up the bed and slide the head of my cock between his cheeks.
“Fuck,” I whisper, pressing my mouth against his and reveling in the way he licks into it to taste himself on my tongue. “I love you, Ranen.”
I don’t think I can say it enough. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to say it enough.
“I love you too.” He says it back, and it ends on another gasp when I thrust into him. He’s so fucking warm on the inside, and maybe it’s just my imagination, but he feels even better slicked with his own cum. I start slow, giving him a few seconds to adjust to me, but I can’t really contain myself. I can’t control how much I want him. The sight of the marks I left on him earlier, darker now that they’ve had time to properly bruise, is driving me crazy.
The way he says “I love you, North,” over and over in little punched-out breaths, is too much. I nearly bend him in half and drive into his worked hole, rolling my hips so the friction of our bodies works against his cock, already hard between us again.
“Give it to me again, Ranen.” I groan it and drop my head to his throat, biting at the muscle there and feeding on the low whine he lets out. I lick his pulse and nip at his jawline, then press my mouth to his. “Show me how much you love me, baby. Come for me again.”
And just like that, he can’t seem to hold himself back. Ranen comes with a shout, and a small burst of cum splatters against his torso as his body clenches around me.
It’s too much.
It’s all too much—it’s not enough.
It’s never going to be enough.
I press my lips to his and kiss him as I follow him into orgasm. My dick throbs, filling him in bursts of pleasure that leave me nearly dizzy and makes me pull back so I can growl those three words against his lips over and over again.
I love you, I love you, I love you .
And then.
“You’re mine.”
“Just yours.” He answers almost as fast as I can say the words, and then gasps again when I pull out of him and press his legs up.
I can’t resist the mess we’ve made, and my tongue swipes against his worked hole that’s still pulsing from the waves of his orgasm. I lick into him, tasting both of our pleasure mixed and mingled inside, drawing out more little whimpers and whines as I work inside him, licking him until we’re all I can taste, until I’m flooded with it.
I delve my tongue inside one more time and then crawl back up his body, using my fingers to pull his chin down.
Ranen sticks his tongue out obediently, and I watch in fascination as I open my lips and let our mixed cum dribble from my mouth and into his. I watch it gather on his tongue for a second before I press my mouth back to his and kiss him until we’re both drunk on the taste.
I pull back when I feel his heartbeat finally slow, licking his bottom lip one last time before drawing him to my chest and kicking the sex-soaked comforter down so I can pull clean sheets up over us.
Ranen instantly curls against me, slipping his slender body to fit perfectly against mine and nuzzling against my throat.
“That was amazing.” He sounds like he’s already half asleep.
“ You’re amazing.” My fingers slip through his damp hair, and I brush them against his brow, eliciting a sweet smile from his kiss-swollen lips. “I love you,” I murmur one more time—softer, sweeter, more than a declaration… More like a promise.
A promise of forever.
“Mmm, I love you too.” Ranen answers me as he drifts off to sleep, and I know without a doubt that I’ll spend the rest of my life making sure I can hear him say those words every day.