Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Frankie
“We don’t need to talk about it,” Joey reminded me. Again.
He was a prickly cactus this morning, but he’d also repeated himself three times. Every time I tried to speak, Joey had a comment—usually sarcastic, often profanity-laced—about why I needed to shut the fuck up.
We’d put hands, and a few more body parts, on each other every night since that first fiery night. Each time, I knew he’d regret it after, but after a week, I expected him to be less raw about it. Like countless things between us, I’d been wrong.
The moment I’d gotten a taste of the man I’d loved since I’d been old enough to understand what that feeling meant, something inside me broke. It had been one thing to imagine him. It was another to discover reality was even better.
Now that every hope, every fantasy, had been proven possible, there was no going back. Indifference wasn’t an option anymore. If I could change anything, it would be that. I’d lost the ability to pretend I didn’t want him.
The rest of it? Sublime.
I’d spent twenty years pretending I didn’t give a shit about Joey because I’d fucked up royally, and somehow my father’s voice still landed in my ear each time I wanted to bridge that gap.
But now the old man was dead, and there was nothing to stop me except—I don’t know.
Self-respect was in short supply these days when it came to my principles, so that wasn’t it.
Fear was more likely, but I wasn’t ready to admit that to myself quite yet.
Goddamn. There was only so much introspection I could handle before breakfast.
“You can be as grumpy as you’d like about it, but I refuse to regret any part of what we’ve shared.”
I said my piece, then walked back into the house and left him sitting on the front steps of the cabin.
With more restraint than I thought possible, I skipped slamming the door behind me.
Joey flared my temper quicker than anyone.
He could pout or leave or do whatever, but I wouldn’t pretend I didn’t want him.
Wanting him had never been the problem, but he would only allow himself near me at night.
“Fuck me, why don’t you ever listen?” Joey yelled through the closed screen door.
Christ, he was stubborn.
The trouble with small houses was that it wasn’t as easy to ignore him as it was when we were at work—him in the field, me with Matteo.
We weren’t in the same place that often, and when it was unavoidable, there were other people around to create a buffer.
Here at the cabin? There was absolutely nothing to come between us and the years of animosity.
It was just Joey, me, and my stupid thoughts, sloshing around my head like a buoy on the ocean.
What I needed was a distraction because, without one, I was just going to brood over the miracle holding up Joey’s sweats.
It was hard not to notice that they hung low on his hip bones, which framed what could only be called the world’s most perfect cum gutters.
“Goddamnit.”
“What’s wrong?”
Joey’s muffled shout sent me straight back outside like my ass was on fire. This time, my attention stayed squarely on his upper half.
“It’s nothing.”
“If it was nothing, you wouldn’t have shouted. What happened?” My tone was sharper than I intended, but it worked.
“I banged my shoulder on the porch pillar. Quit making a big deal about it,” Joey groused while he cradled his arm against his chest. I’d been careful each night not to jostle him, but maybe not enough. “Go away.”
“No,” I answered flatly. The best way to deal with Joey was to simply ignore him when he was being a brat, like he’d been for a week.
“Let me look at your shoulder.” He still wore the sling, and aside from some light bruising, it looked good.
There wasn’t much swelling and nothing felt warm. “Yeah, you’ll be okay.”
“No shit,” Joey said with a smirk that was intended to throw me off.
It failed.
The tension around his mouth was a damn dead giveaway.
Standing chest to chest, I felt the heat emanating from him.
The tendons in his neck were tight, as were his shoulders.
The pupils of his eyes were constricted in the bright morning light that made its way through the trees, but the corners crinkled with pain.
Before I could talk myself out of it, I leaned forward and brushed my lips softly across his.
When I pulled back, he chased after me. That was all the opening I needed to taste him again.
And again. Rather than fight me, Joey leaned in and let the softness that neither of us wanted to admit existed out to play.
Gingerly, I pulled him toward me and allowed myself the secret pleasure of his body resting against mine.
He was thick where I was lean, but neither of us was soft.
I tasted the bite of toothpaste and the sweetness that was the essence of him.
For the time he allowed it, I was going to revel in having him so close.
It wouldn’t last because he’d shove me away again, but I wasn’t going to step away until he forced it.
Joey’s hands grazed my back, probably against his better judgment, his fingers digging into the muscles underneath my Henley.
I wished he would slip them under the hem so I could feel the pads of his calloused fingers on my bare skin, but beggars couldn’t be choosers, and I’d take what I could get with the grump.
I dropped my hands to his waist and ground our cocks against each other.
We were both hard, and we pressed against each other, trying to find relief wherever we could get it. Christ, this man was going to be the death of me. When he jerked away from me, I felt the loss in my soul.
“Did you hear that?” he snapped as he whipped his head around to look into the inky darkness of the thick trees surrounding the cabin.
I scanned the area around the cottage as best I could, looking for any sign of life between the branches, but there was nothing but stillness.
Oppressive stillness. I couldn’t see anything in the tree line, but I felt it—the watchful eye of something or, more likely, someone.
Out of instinct, my hand moved to the gun in my shoulder holster while Joey went for his waistband.
We both scanned the area—him to the east and me to the west.
“Someone’s out there,” Joey murmured.
“Yeah. We need to get back inside now.”
In unison, with our backs toward each other, we slowly moved toward the door while our eyes continued to scan for the threat we instinctively knew was out there.
It had been wishful thinking to believe our reprieve would last more than a few days, but this was the life we led, and there was no point pretending that any of our kind died of old age.
Besides the rustling at the tops of the trees, there wasn’t any movement. The stillness was the eerie part, and I had no delusions that things wouldn’t get messy before this was done.
The minute we got inside, Joey grabbed his phone to send an encrypted text to Matteo. Within seconds of firing it off, his phone rang with an incoming call.
“Matteo, I don’t know who’s watching us, but someone is.”
Whatever the response, Joey’s answers were clipped and to the point.
Their conversation lasted maybe three minutes, but the grim line of Joey’s mouth didn’t bode well for the outcome.
“Are you sure?” I hadn’t heard the question, but there was no mistaking the shouted obscenities that came through in his response. “I’ll let him know. But Connor is okay?”
“What the fuck happened to Connor?”
“I’ll tell you in a minute,” Joey ground out through clenched teeth before returning his attention to the phone call. “Boss, I don’t feel good about being up here with you down there.”
There was more back-and-forth that ended with more swearing, then Joey disconnected the call.
“Tell me.”
“Connor was working in the garden and someone made it onto the grounds. He’s okay, but…”
“There’s no goddamn way we’re staying up here.”
“Gosh, why didn’t I think of that?” Joey smirked.
“What the hell can you do?”
His pride might be important to him, but he was still recovering.
It had only been a week. Joey would tell me to fuck right off if I said I was worried about his health, but questioning his ability to do his job was always on the table.
Joey was so pissed off that it took more than a minute for the sputtering to stop and the obscene suggestions to begin.
“How does fucking myself with dynamite help anything?”
“Fuck off. I’m more useful on my worst day than your usual fucked-up ones.”
“Careful, Jojo.”
The name slipped out of my mouth, but we both stopped breathing when it hit the charged air around us.
His dirty look spoke volumes about how much he wanted to murder me right now, but I wasn’t going to apologize for using the name I’d christened him with when we were three and met for the first time.
“Don’t fucking call me that,” he spat out. The white scar on his face stood out against his flushed cheeks.
“It’s your name,” I answered simply. “And it’s how I think of you.”
“You don’t think jack shit about me.”
“And that’s where you’re wrong. I think about you more than you know.”
With my admittedly unfair parting shot, I turned on my heel and started packing. Without looking to see who owned what, I grabbed whatever I could find and shoved it into bags all mixed together. I swallowed any disappointment that he hadn’t followed me.
This man was going to be the death of me.
“How the fuck did he get in?”