12. Draven #2
I had confirmed that his cock looked just as good when it wasn’t hard. While he toweled off his hair I let my gaze linger on his shaft as it hung there, thick and heavy between his legs, up against the side of one of his thighs.
If I’d known Tennessee had views like these…
He finally brought the towel down to his waist, wrapping it around his hips and stepping out of the shower.
“People send you private messages like these?” I asked him, showing him the screen of his phone.
He glanced down at it. “Oh. That guy. DizzeeHippo . He’s been around for a while, just a weirdo.”
“What do you say to him?”
“I ignore him.”
“You need to block him. And you need to stop showing details of the outside of your barn and property in the videos you film outside.”
“He’s harmless, Draven,” Max said. “Not so sure you are, though.”
Definitely not, Baby Blue.
Water droplets still clung to the curved divots above his collarbone, and his hair was damp and smelled so fucking good I wanted to bury my face in it.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, and as I was pulling it out, Max moved forward, trying to get through the bathroom doorway. As I stepped out of the way, he shoulder checked me, knocking me a little on one side.
The impulse to slam him up against the wall was potent.
Fuck.
My phone was still buzzing incessantly, but I was distracted now. Any little thing like that from him and my body went from zero to sixty in an instant. The feeling of Max’s body on mine was too good, even when he was trying to be rough.
Better when he was trying to be rough.
As he walked off, I reached out to grip his ass through the towel. I gave one of his ass cheeks the tightest grip I could, but the thick towel was in the way.
I yanked it down. My hand connected with his ass and as I finally gave it a firm grip, skin on skin. Max whirled around after a moment and gave me a quick shove against my shoulders, his gaze electric.
I groaned. My cock was so hard it ached under my pants now.
My phone had stopped buzzing and then started up all over again. Whoever was calling really wanted to reach me, and I hated them for it.
“Your lucky fucking day,” I murmured, handing Max the towel again. “I need to take this.”
“What?” he asked. “If you didn’t have to answer the phone, you’d kill me right here?”
“I’d pin you against this wall,” I told him, “tie your wrists with my belt so you’d stop fucking with me, then sink my cock so deep inside you that I wouldn’t even have time to consider killing you.”
His eyes flared wide just for a moment.
God, you really do want it, don’t you?
I watched the dimples at the bottom of his back as he padded down the short hall toward his bedroom.
Finally, I answered my phone, heat still rolling through my veins.
“Dom. Hey,” I said.
“Got a little gift for you,” Dominic said in a singsong voice.
I pulled in a long breath, walking over to Max’s kitchen and looking out the little open window above his sink. “Tell me. What’s up?”
“A certain police chief had a little oopsie last night.”
My interest was piqued immediately. “No way.”
“Oh, yes, Draven,” Dominic said, like he knew exactly how good this news was. “It was him.”
“McGowan? What happened?”
“McGowan, indeed. It was a DUI,” Dominic said. “A really bad one. Not just alcohol. He was still on painkillers after his time at the hospital. They’re trying to keep tight-lipped about it, obviously, but you know what that means.”
Shit.
Dom really did have a gift for me. A Christmas gift the size of a fucking police chief.
Brody McGowan.
The youngest police chief the department had ever had, thanks to his family connections.
The fucking piece of shit who used to be our friend.
“Leverage,” I said.
“Leverage.”
I drummed my fingers on the kitchen countertop, possibilities floating through my mind. “This is fucking huge, Dom.”
“I know. I’m still working on the Bill Franklin problem, but the worse problem seems to be moving in our favor.”
I pulled in a slow breath, looking out at the overcast skies outside Max’s kitchen window. The shrubs and trees were blowing in a gentle breeze, and I saw the fluffy white cat, rooting around next to one of the honeysuckle plants.
“Maybe I’ll actually be able to come back sooner rather than later,” I said.
The thought of going home to Montana still felt like a far-off mirage.
For a while it hadn’t seemed possible that any solutions would present themselves back home.
But if Brody McGowan was out as police chief, that would be massive.
If I was able to get out of any major legal repercussions, and could somehow get Franklin not to press charges…
Would Montana ever feel the same again?
Everything I’d ever loved was back there. My horses, my land. The dramatic mountains. The way it looked from my living room windows at sunset, right as people were about to start showing up to my house, or the way it looked from the infinity pool at sunrise, when the party was still raging on.
Montana had my mansion, my cars, my memories, but none of them seemed to matter right now.
When I’d left, all I’d wanted was to go back.
Why did it feel so hollow right now?
Dominic discussed a few other things with me, talking finance, updating me on my mom’s issues, and talking about yet another agribusiness venture my brother and sister were getting involved with. Everything seemed to be carrying on as usual back home without me.
Like I was a ghost.
Maybe as if my family felt like I’d never been there at all.
“I’ll let you know how the DUI shakes out,” Dom said. “Ah… how’s Lily?”
“She’s fine. I still hate that she had to deal with any part of this, but… she’s fine.”
That was a layer of guilt I still hadn’t been able to peel away from my heart.
Talking to Dom about Lily would probably always be painful, because Brody had shown all of us his true colors.
On that day.
That day I will never fucking talk about, for the rest of my life.
But at least I knew the worst of it was over, now.
Max appeared in my peripheral vision, coming into the kitchen and starting to make yet another abominable sort of protein drink.
“And how are you doing, D?” Dom asked me.
“I’ve got to go,” I told him.
“Damn. Thought you’d scream with joy when I told you the news.”
“It’s very good news.”
“Is everything okay with you?”
“Don’t worry about me.”
Dominic sighed. “Fine. But you owe me a longer call later. Talk to you soon.”
We hung up and I slipped my phone away, the news swirling around in my mind.
I watched in silence as Max blended up another drink, this one vaguely brown instead of green.
“Isn’t one protein shake enough for one day?” I asked him. “Swallow my cum if you need more protein that badly.”
“This one’s not protein, it’s electrolytes, antioxidants, and adaptogens.”
I groaned. “Whatever the fuck adaptogens are, I promise you’ll get some if you suck me dry?—”
“What was that about on the phone?” he interjected, turning toward me and holding his bottle up to take a sip.
The grey light from the kitchen window came in along the side of his face. I was surprised to see a slight bit of genuine concern in his eyes.
How the fuck do you care about anything that much, let alone me?
I didn’t know how much he’d heard of my conversation.
“Don’t worry about it,” I told him.
The soft, earnest way he was looking at me only reminded me why I shouldn’t be associating with him at all. Max needed me to protect him from bad people.
I couldn’t be the bad person in his life.
I knew Max wanted more from me. I could see it in his expression, every time he looked at my eyes or at my lips.
He wanted to know my secrets. Wanted to know what I’d just talked about on the phone. Probably wanted to know my favorite color and my pizza topping preferences and my damn star sign, too.
Or maybe I just want to know all of those things about him .
The temptation to give in to him was getting greater and greater, but I knew better by now.
The less he knew about me, the better.
Much later, when I was home alone at night, my phone rang again.
Max’s name came up on the screen, and I sat upright in bed, reaching to answer his call.
“Max,” I said. “You okay?”
“Um, I think so,” he said, uncertainty in his voice.
Adrenaline hit my veins all at once. “Doesn’t sound like you think so. What’s going on?”
He sighed audibly. “That guy who messaged me earlier. The one I said was a creep that I ignore?—”
“What the fuck did he do?”
“Well, he sent me a video of himself. It was lewd—of him taking out his cock, shaking it in his fist. Fucking ugly cock, too?—”
“I don’t like that.”
“But that’s not the problem. I’ve gotten more than a few dick pics. The issue was that the background of the video was the front of the Hard Spot. And his message said I’m in Tennessee, sweetie. Waiting for you .”
I stood up out of bed, pacing around my bedroom. “He had his cock out in front of the Hard Spot? On a busy street?”
“Looked like he took it out really quick, just for a second, to flash me in the video. I could hear the sounds of the street in the background.”
My chest tightened. “Your security cameras are both on, right?”
“Um… if you left them on, then they’re on, I guess.”
A wave of urgency rolled through me. “Take this seriously, Max. Have you been checking the cameras at all?”
“I kind of forgot about them.”
I clenched my jaw.
“Drive over to my house. Right now.”
“I don’t think it’s that big of a deal?—”
“ Do it . Get in your truck, now.”
He paused for a moment, then finally relented. “Okay.”