Chapter 28
enemies, neutral parties, and his
A cuff locked around Kit’s wrist like an extension of Holden’s grasp. Natural. Right. Kit twisted his arm, savoring the comfortable tension. The pressure of Holden’s weight and gaze.
The binding steel of the word love, twisting like barbed wire.
“Scoot up,” Holden said, intent on the logistics even as Kit sank into pure sensation.
Damp skin pulled the sheets askew. Kit shoved the pillow aside and lay down again, closer to the headboard. Perfectly placed for Holden to loop the chain around the bar, then secure the second cuff.
Holden sat back, clearly admiring his handiwork. Admiring Kit. A droplet of water raced down the side of his face.
“That’s good,” Kit breathed. “Do my ankles now.”
He couldn’t beg for love, but he could demand more chains, and wasn’t that the same thing, in the end?
“I can’t tie them to the footboard,” Holden warned, taking hold of Kit’s ankle. “The chains aren’t long enough for me to fuck you like that. Is chaining them together good enough?”
Kit’s cock jumped in response to each leisurely caress. Fuck, he didn’t know his feet were so sensitive. “Y-yeah. That’s. Fine.”
“Excellent,” Holden said, eyes narrowing with his grin. He didn’t waste any more time securing Kit’s legs.
Without being secured to the footboard, the chain was loose. It rattled with every movement, and the weight was so deliciously obvious.
Holden scrambled for a bottle Kit didn’t even remember falling to the bed. Liquid gleamed on his fingers. “Would you spread your legs for me, darling?” Holden asked politely, kneeling between Kit’s knees.
“Like this?” Kit asked, his entire body humming with anticipation. Propping his knees up dragged the ankle chain over Holden’s calves.
Holden’s hand dropped from Kit’s field of vision. “Perfect.”
The next slick touch drew a needy whimper from Kit. One moment of teasing pressure, painting cool wetness into every crevice of Kit’s pucker. One tremble, beginning with Holden or Kit or both. Then Holden slid two long, insistent fingers inside.
Kit moaned, arching into the sudden intrusion. Nerves fired off, surprised to get exactly what they craved. No more teasing—Holden pumped Kit’s hole roughly.
“God, you’re pretty like this,” Holden said, voice ragged with wonder. “Just getting you nice and wet. Do you want more stretching? Or should I loosen you up on my cock?”
The words burrowed so deep inside Kit, he saw stars. He wanted to feel everything. “Cock. Please.”
“So polite,” Holden praised, and pressed a messy kiss to Kit’s collar bone.
Kit’s body clenched around Holden’s fingers as they withdrew. The emptiness was an exquisite ache. Kit hiked his legs up eagerly with Holden’s push. His ankles hooked around Holden’s hips, the chain dangling around them. Binding Holden to him, too.
Holden’s cockhead notched against Kit’s hole. Anticipation soared to dizzying heights until one hard thrust dragged Kit back to earth. Blissful, physical reality. Kit jerked involuntarily against the cuffs. The steel was as unrelenting as Holden’s cock driving into him.
“Yes,” Kit breathed, clinging. “Yes, like this.”
Holden panted, braced over him. Droplets of water fell from his hair, splashing over Kit’s chest. “I’m yours. You know that, right?”
Kit shuddered with how good those words felt. Yes. Holden belonged to him. The chains might be on Kit’s limbs, but Holden was the one who would come running when Kit tugged the metaphorical leash. No, Kit didn’t have to lift a finger. Their singular possessiveness went both ways.
“I love you, too,” Kit promised.
With a growl, Holden moved. Short, quick thrusts, keeping as much of him inside Kit as possible at every moment. Kit strained against his bindings, hands curling into fists.
The bed creaked, and chains rattled in chorus, almost as loud as Kit’s drumming pulse. His cock slapped upwards with the impact, painting precum on his stomach. Almost as hot as Holden’s breath against his lips.
Holden adjusted his grip on Kit’s thigh. His hand slipped, still wet with lube, then found enough purchase to bend Kit in half.
The next thrust punched even deeper, at just the right angle. Fuck. Kit was a tangled knot of pleasure, just seconds from unraveling. His toes curled. Another few thrusts, and he wouldn’t even need Holden to touch his cock.
“Do you want to come?” Holden asked—and stopped moving.
Kit squirmed, desperate for stimulation, but couldn’t move enough. Holden had him too thoroughly pinned. “Please, Holden, I’m so fucking close. You fucking bastard. Don’t you dare make me beg.”
Holden laughed breathlessly, eyes shining. “Looks like I don’t have to, huh?” He shoved deeper, grinding up. “You sound so fucking hot like this. You look so hot, all chained up for me.”
“Please,” Kit demanded. Definitely not begging. “Please, please, Holden, I need you. I need. Please, I—ah!”
Holden’s hand, slick with sweat and water and traces of lube, closed around Kit’s cock. The first gentle stroke drove Kit to the edge. The second sent him plummeting. Kit arched, straining against his cuffs, clinging tightly to Holden.
He was still trembling when Holden’s cum-soaked hand moved from his cock to his throat. Holden didn’t press down. Just held him.
“My darling,” Holden murmured, smearing the cum into Kit’s skin. “So perfect.”
He drove in, chasing his own orgasm in Kit’s oversensitive body. A few rough moments that Kit looked forward to feeling for days.
Then the revelation in Holden’s face. An expression Kit would remember forever.
Afterwards, Kit lay plastered against Holden’s chest, his hair no doubt drying into horrible shapes. Holden unchained Kit’s hands but left his feet bound together as they cuddled. Another echo of the kidnapping.
The familiarity was reassuring, in a fucked-up way. Holden could dig beneath Kit’s ribs without harming him. Kit was more trapped than ever, choosing to be here. The chains looped around his heart, not just his body.
Holden must be thinking of that night, too. “You saved me.”
“How?” Kit asked. Yeah, he’d persuaded the others not to kill Holden, but he sensed that wasn’t what Holden meant.
“You gave me a way to exist without destroying myself.” Holden toyed with Kit’s half-dried hair. “Sure, there are sometimes things you don’t want me to do. But you’ve never wanted me to change.”
Kit snuggled closer. “Except when I dumped you for being normal.”
Holden’s laugh rumbled through his chest. “Except then.”
Every sensation felt heightened. Sticky skin and drying hair and tangled bedsheets and the persistent well-fucked ache. Kit was present in his body, in a way that would normally scare him.
He couldn’t forget about the rest of the world forever.
Holden moved from Kit’s hair to his back, tracing abstract patterns. “What’s wrong, beautiful?”
Kit sighed, released reluctantly from silence. “I’m worried about the others.”
“What else?” Holden prodded.
Kit felt too safe and vulnerable to hide. “If I was alone, I would probably hurt myself.”
Holden froze. Kit held his breath, waiting for a reaction he couldn’t handle. Questions he didn’t want to answer.
But Holden just resumed tracing patterns along Kit’s spine. “You’re not alone,” he said, quiet and confident.
Kit relaxed. “I’m not.”
The confession was unexpectedly freeing. Better than bruises.
James paused in the shadow of a palm tree, one of a dozen flanking this side of the beach house. His shoulders burned for action. For deadly flight.
Bishop was five feet back, behind another tree. Dawn smudged pink over the city, and lavender blue lingered above the ocean. Waves scraped the shore out of view. James couldn’t see the beach itself past the property’s elaborate gardens and gazebos and fences.
They’d taken half the night to figure out which Lemon Beach house was the target.
The neighborhood was gently crammed with luxury vacation homes, each bristling with security tech.
James had visited most of them for birthdays, business mixers, and charity functions.
First with his family, paraded around as Evelyn Zhou’s honor student son with a knack for computers.
Then by himself, in the bloody shadow of his inheritance.
James hadn’t visited this house. A hasty one-hour search, with Carla helping remotely, hadn’t turned up the owner’s name. But they’d found Darius’s duffel bag outside the fence. Empty.
The dawn was peaceful. Idyllic. The salty air touched some primal, homecoming instinct. James belonged here. Sure, he grew up half an hour from the beach. But anyone from San Corvo belonged to this liminal space.
Just as naturally as the heavy pistol belonged in his hand. Anticipation heated, waiting for its boiling point. Not the calm before the storm, because James was not calm.
Hopefully soon, he would get to kill someone.
James surveyed his surroundings. He was on the edge of a barbeque pit and seating area. All of it far too clean—either never used, or extremely competent groundskeepers. There was an outdoor bar that would make a good stopping point before James reached the side door he was aiming for.
All clear. James nodded over his shoulder, gestured a two followed by a thumbs-up, then moved towards the bar. Carefully across the dry mulch, which was prone to cracking underfoot. Then carefully around the two dead bodies face down in the blood-soaked gravel.
Yeah. James looked forward to killing someone—if there was anyone left to kill.
He crouched behind the bar. Seconds later, Bishop crouched next to him.
“Looks like Darius’s work,” Bishop said, barely audible.
James snorted. “Darius’s work is ‘generic assassin.’ Could be anyone.”
Whoever it was had made infiltrating this place a lot easier. A dozen guards were a lot for your basic rich person vacation home. Less secure when all dozen of them were dead. James had set up signal jammers at four corners of the property, so there shouldn’t be any backup coming either.
The new and improved jammers, inspired by the guy he and Darius killed in that warehouse. Even James’s phone wasn’t working now, which was why he’d sent a last text to Kit an hour ago.
James: Cutting comms now. Everything’s going great. Love you, babe
James: Also I’m fucking serious, don’t have a meltdown over me saying everything’s going great, okay???
Not that that probably helped. His sweet boy liked to worry. But at least Kit wasn’t alone…
Ugh. James should have locked Holden in the cellar.
Gritting his teeth, James leaned around the bar to peer at their destination. A discreet brown side door. One more body slumped in the bushes next to it. James gestured one, then another thumbs-up.
Then he moved forward at a crouch, finger on the trigger. Quick steps. Cross the exposed space. Get to the—
The door swung inward.
“Wait!” Bishop barked.
James’s gun was already swerving sideways. His arms trembled with the misfired jolt of adrenaline. “For fuck’s sake! Don’t surprise a guy like that.”
In the doorway, Darius stood haloed by shadows. “Look who’s talking. Something tells me you weren’t planning on knocking.” He waved a phone. “Get in—and turn the fucking jammer off. I’m waiting on a text.”
James straightened up but couldn’t follow. Surreality pinned him in place. After a day and night of frantic searching—after scaring Kit—Darius was right here. Button-down shirt barely rumpled. Tired but calm, like the wavering sunrise over whispering waves.
“James,” Bishop said at his shoulder. He made a movement, then must have thought better of touching James.
Smart man. James’s trigger finger was still twitchy.
Too twitchy. Fuck. James holstered his gun, because he didn’t fucking trust himself. “You’d better have a damn good explanation,” he growled, storming inside. “Whose house is this? Did you kill everyone on your way in?”
His questions weren’t loud, but they filled the laundry room they’d ended up in. Darius braced his hands on his hips. Near his own gun. His gaze fell, and now that they were closer, James saw he wasn’t calm at all.
Bishop closed the door, then pushed past Darius. His footsteps paused in another room, and he swore quietly.
“I didn’t kill them getting in,” Darius said, sounding so normal James would be fooled if he didn’t know the man so well. “First, I got in. Then I killed her. Then I went back out and killed the guards. Can you turn the jammer off?”
“Her?” James asked.
From the other room, Bishop called, “She’s in here.”
James waited for an explanation that never came. “Fuck you,” he muttered, shoving the jammer control at Darius. “Call Kit and tell him you’re alive, you fucking asshole.”
He barely caught Darius’s wince.
James joined Bishop in a spacious living room. Tall white ceilings and coral couches and seashell accents and a dead woman on the coffee table.
Dead bodies weren’t new. James divided the world into enemies, neutral parties, and his. As long as the dead were enemies, he didn’t give a shit.
This one interested him from a tactical perspective. She wasn’t dressed in security gear like the corpses outside. An expensive silk lounging robe and nightgown covered her frame, and her toenails were bright red. What James could see of her face was the pristine middle age only money could buy.
Two neat bullet holes pierced her forehead. One above her right temple, the other dead center. Blood congealed in her short blond hair.
Her clothing was in disarray, revealing a gun strapped to her thigh. She hadn’t had time to draw it. Black and red geometric tattoos circled her exposed forearms.
Realization struck James in bold, sharp lines. This was the unidentified woman from the scrapbook. The one who was photographed at an art gallery with James’s dad. At a museum gala with James’s mom.
Her face looked different, slack with death.
A nameless puzzle piece. An afterthought next to more pressing leads. Yet now James stood in her home, and Darius had already killed her. Darius had run off, leaving Holden to find the body, hanging up on Kit, to kill her.
Darius wasn’t the type to overreact. Unfortunately, James was.
“Hey, D,” James said, his own voice distant, the nickname a warding charm against a firestorm. “Who is this?”
Darius exhaled into his trademark relaxed readiness. “This was Felicity Carrow. The second Rat King.”