Chapter 40
safety wasn’t enough anymore
Hours later, Kit curled up in Darius’s bed, with James pressed behind him because Darius was still brushing his teeth.
The room was dim, only the bathroom light on.
Mundane actions felt absurd after the days’ events.
Darius shouldn’t be brushing his teeth when Dad was out of prison.
Kit shouldn’t be wearing pajamas—boxers and one of James’s shirts—when Bishop’s ex-partner was out of prison either.
James shouldn’t slide one bare foot between Kit’s when a dead body chilled in the spare freezer.
They all had to sleep at some point. Holden was either in his room or pacing the halls, and Bishop had a guest room.
Out in the night, contacts were contacting and networks were networking.
Despite the sudden shock, this situation wouldn’t resolve urgently.
Kit had to harness his panic into something he could endure for days. Maybe even weeks.
The crash of exhaustion would help. Hopefully soon.
Darius padded into the room, the bathroom light still on. James kissed the top of Kit’s right shoulder, lingering until the skin warmed. The tenderness of his words seemed to arrive before the words themselves, wrapping around Kit’s tired limbs.
“I’m not going to apologize, because you’ll feel weird about it,” James murmured. “But if I did, I’d be sorry for not being someone you could share everything with.”
Kit rolled over to face James. Tracing the fiery feathers peeking over James’s shoulder, he gathered his thoughts. “You were better than that. Both of you,” Kit added, as the bed dipped. Darius slid perfectly in place behind him. Fuck. Kit liked this. “I didn’t have to tell you. I needed that.”
Darius kissed Kit’s neck, right where James’s lips had been moments ago.
“I probably should have mentioned some things,” Kit admitted. “Logistically speaking.”
“This is a glass mansion.” James kissed Kit’s forehead. “Nobody’s throwing stones.”
Quiet fell, and Kit’s heartbeat steadied. Surrounded by love, he was the closest to safe he’d felt all day. Maybe all week, maybe ever since he got that stupid text about that stupid DNA search.
Yeah. Kit couldn’t doze off yet. He had one more problem to face. Reluctantly, he dragged himself from his boyfriends’ heavy arms.
“I need to talk to Bishop,” Kit said.
In the dim light, neither James nor Darius looked surprised.
“Just talk?” James asked, leering.
“Shut up,” Kit groaned, and slid out of bed.
Darkness shrouded the house. Technology blinked like stars here and there, but otherwise, not even exterior lights snuck through.
All the windows were sealed, reinforced blinds locking out moonbeams and prying eyes.
Kit navigated the house first by memory, then by the dim glow of the downstairs guest room.
The door was cracked open. Kit stopped outside, out of view. Bishop probably saw Kit’s shadow anyway. He’d probably heard Kit approaching, never quiet enough. Kit still paused. If he didn’t enter, they could both pretend he hadn’t been here.
Another night echoed: the first time Kit crept into Bishop’s bedroom. He’d wanted to seduce his captor for a place to stay, trading a body he could barely feel. Now Kit knew Bishop would never have agreed to that.
Bishop wasn’t a good person. He just wasn’t that kind of bad.
Now they were in Kit’s house, not Bishop’s, caught in a mess Kit brought down on all their heads. Maybe he could have prevented this if he had told the truth. When Bishop shoved those case folders across the table, Kit could have said how he really knew Uncle Ed.
Maybe he would have told the truth sooner if Bishop had fucked him that night.
No, Kit shouldn’t be selfish, even if taking all the blame felt self-destructively right. Dad wasn’t the only breakout. Bishop’s past was back to haunt them, too.
Kit sighed and slipped through the door.
Bishop sat at the desk across from the bed. His phone, a laptop, and two handguns gleamed on the surface. His tan jacket draped over the chair, and he angled towards the door.
“I wasn’t sure you’d come in,” Bishop said, his voice soft but his eyes intense. That perpetual scruff sharpened his jaw.
“Were you hoping I would or that I wouldn’t?” Kit asked.
“I’m glad you did.” Bishop stood and drew closer. “Otherwise, I would have had to catch you myself.”
Kit froze in anticipation, toes curling into the carpet, James’s t-shirt slipping off one shoulder. He was already caught before Bishop invaded his space. Breath stirred Kit’s hair. Bishop reached past, brushing Kit’s shoulder, to close the door.
Skin hungered for skin. Kit burned with the urge to kiss this infuriating man. But not yet. He needed Bishop to push this time.
After a breathless moment, Bishop stepped back. Before disappointment struck, his next words hooked deeper. “I realized where I recognized you from.”
Kit exhaled. “You recognized me?”
“You looked familiar, but I couldn’t place you.” Bishop lifted Kit’s chin, exposing him to the soft light. “Archie went to trial five years ago. They couldn’t try him in San Corvo, so they tried him in Vilton.”
The Vilton courthouse. Five years ago. Long hallways and waiting rooms and people everywhere. Kit had been self-conscious until he realized everyone had their own preoccupations. Dad wasn’t the only murderer in the building. Kit wasn’t the only child losing everything.
None of the vague memories included Bishop. Few of them included clear faces at all. Adults in suits all blended together. Kit barely had the capacity to endure his own life, let alone observing others.
Bishop had crossed the room without Kit noticing. He sat on the edge of the bed, but his presence still filled the night.
“I saw you in the hallways a few times,” Bishop said, unlacing his shoes.
“You were the quietest kid I’d ever seen, and I remember wondering why you were there.
” Bishop paused before setting his shoes aside.
Like he too struggled to move through the shadows.
“I was too lost in my own bullshit to pay any more attention.”
“I don’t remember you at all.” Kit drifted closer. “There was no reason for you to pay attention to me.”
Bishop gave a crooked grin. “You were a mystery. You needed help.”
Kit’s stomach twisted. Fragments of another life cut like broken glass. If he’d met Bishop earlier. If he’d met any of his men earlier.
But he couldn’t maintain the fantasy. He hadn’t been ready to be helped yet, not in therapy, not with his foster family in Arizona. “You wouldn’t have kept me from spiraling.”
“Maybe you could have helped me.” Bishop patted the bed. “Come here.”
Kit almost sat in Bishop’s lap instead. One more needy, cowardly distraction. But he didn’t, because that wouldn’t work like it would work on James or Holden. Maybe even Darius.
Because it wouldn’t work, or because Kit wanted to stop hiding.
He sank onto the firm mattress, clutching the bedspread.
“I should have told you more about Dad. I just thought…” Kit forced the excuses down.
The reasons that made sense earlier, when he didn’t know these men so well, didn’t hold true anymore.
They hadn’t for a while. “I put you all at risk by keeping you in the dark. I’m sorry. ”
“Thank you,” Bishop said quietly, without exoneration.
And Kit relaxed.
James and Darius might say keeping secrets was all right. Holden would validate any of Kit’s actions, from overspending on phone games to shooting a man. Kit had enough validation tonight. He needed truth. Judgment. Consequences.
Bishop’s hand fell to Kit’s thigh and squeezed. “You put yourself at risk, too.” Bishop’s voice was calm. Controlled. “We can’t protect you from threats we don’t know about.”
“I’m sorry,” Kit whispered. “I’ll do better. I’ll try, at least.”
“That’s good,” Bishop murmured, and the approval zinged through Kit’s veins. “I’m sorry, too.”
Kit thought he’d misheard at first. “What the fuck are you sorry about?”
Kit counted Bishop’s breaths. Three steady exhalations, calm, in contrast to the heated brand of his palm against Kit’s thigh. The room was an oasis of dim light.
“For running your DNA without telling you,” Bishop said.
Anger surged, but it was dull. Reflexive, not fresh. Kit swallowed it down. “Without telling me. But you’re not sorry for doing it.”
Thumb tracing small shapes into Kit’s flesh, Bishop nodded. “I took the coward’s route. If I found exactly what you told me, nothing unexpected, I never had to tell you. I could keep the knowledge to myself, and I could stay in your orbit.”
Kit relaxed, leaving rumpled fingernail marks in the bedspread. Confessions didn’t feel so sharp with Bishop at his side. “I’m glad you didn’t tell me. If I’d had any warning, I would have planned my escape better.”
He would be alone. Bus stop or a stolen car, shedding phone and bracelet and anything else that tied him to the people he cared about. Ditching the gun from Darius as soon as he found another. Changing clothes, dyeing his hair, chasing safety through invisibility.
Except safety wasn’t enough anymore. Mere survival didn’t make his heart race like the brush of Bishop’s arm against his.
“I keep thinking about the timing,” Bishop admitted. “Did Laird escape because I ran your DNA? Why did Archie ask to see me? Did I make this worse for you?”
Each worry wove around Kit. Instead of feeling guilty, he felt comforted.
Bishop was his safety net, which perversely made him the most dangerous of all the dangerous men in this house.
Kit could keep pushing and pushing, and Bishop would stand still until the right moment.
Until now, unless Kit was mistaking this oasis of strange understanding. The heat of breath against his ear.
Bishop had waited, ready to catch the real Kit: exhausted, vulnerable, stripped of his secrets.
“We both did the right thing,” Kit said, slipping from Bishop’s grasp, only to straddle his lap. “We both did the wrong thing. Does it have to matter?”
Bishop’s jeans rasped against Kit’s bare thighs. The thin cotton of Kit’s boxers stretched to its limits. Bishop’s gaze flickered. He held Kit by the hips.
His grasp was gentle. Inescapable. Kit could wriggle away, but Bishop’s touch would still burn into his soul.
Bishop rasped, “Every damn thing about you matters, brat.”
Kit rocked into the friction. Deliberate. Without breaking eye contact. This wasn’t about distraction. “I used to hate you for resisting me,” Kit breathed, looping his arms around Bishop’s shoulders. “Now, I think I love you for it.”
The word tumbled out without permission. Too much, too soon. Bishop didn’t call out Kit’s mistake. He just dug possessive grooves into Kit’s hips. “Is that why you were so fucking tempting?”
Kit licked his lips. “Was I tempting?”
“I’m not talking about the seductive act.” Bishop’s grin was crooked. Fond. “Though I like that, too.”
Rough hands scraped up the back of Kit’s shirt. He arched into Bishop’s calluses.
“You were so tightly armored.” Bishop leaned close, inhaling beneath Kit’s jaw. “But so desperate to love.”
Kit whined, thoughts scattering between word and touch. “You’re supposed to pretend I didn’t say that.”
Teeth scraped Kit’s throat. Bishop’s words rumbled deep. “I want to unravel you.”
Arousal hooked into Kit. His cock strained, and James’s shirt was suddenly suffocating. Kit already frayed at the seams. But Bishop was right. He could unravel further.
“One condition,” Kit said, clinging to one last sliver of control. He yanked Bishop’s head up with a handful of hair. “If you kiss me tonight, you have to mean it.”
Bishop’s gaze pierced silver in the dim light. “I’ve always meant it,” Bishop said, a breath before the kiss.
Kit sank in, eager to drown. Stubble scraped, and tongues slid past hungry lips. Kit’s pulse raced upwards, as if his heart trembled in his throat, each beat drummed by Bishop’s insistent touch.
This was nothing like their previous kisses. This was a decision, far more intense than a hasty impulse.
Bishop growled into Kit’s mouth, and the world flipped over. Kit slammed back, bouncing on the bed until Bishop covered his body. The sheer size of him scattered Kit’s thoughts until they reshaped into memory.
Back in Bishop’s house. Kit crawled into Bishop’s bed, and Bishop flipped him over just like this. Kit wasn’t trading his body for a place to stay anymore. Not even security. He wanted so much more than that—he wanted Bishop himself.
They fumbled with clothing. Kit managed two buttons of Bishop’s shirt.
Then he gave up, because Bishop had hitched his jeans down, and Kit’s boxers somehow dangled on a single ankle.
Bishop’s cock slid hot and heavy next to Kit’s.
Embers flared, then ignited, as one callused hand grasped them together.
Bishop’s other hand pinned Kit’s wrist to the mattress. Almost as controlling as Bishop’s stare.
“You made me feel something,” Kit said, winding his free hand into Bishop’s hair. “Back in Ed’s kitchen. I hadn’t felt anything in a long time.”
Bishop saw through him. Good. “I terrified you.”
“I liked it,” Kit confessed, yanking Bishop closer. “But this is scarier.”
Bishop jerked their cocks together, in incandescent punctuation. “I’m scared of this, too.”
Understanding bound them together, more tightly than any handcuffs. Bishop understood how frightening it was to feel without blunting the emotions. He understood that Kit’s fear was far more tender a gift than his love.
Whimpering, Kit rutted into Bishop’s grasp. They were still partly dressed. James’s shirt rode up Kit’s stomach, and Bishop’s shirt feathered Kit’s heated skin. They didn’t need to strip down to be fully exposed.
“Remember the first time you tried seducing me?” Bishop asked, twisting Kit’s cock.
“Yeah,” Kit managed. “You bastard.”
“I almost fucked you that night.” Bishop’s words crashed through Kit. “I jerked off after you left.”
Bishop released Kit’s wrist to grasp his face instead. A thick thumb pushed between Kit’s kiss-bitten lips. Kit whined, writhing, suddenly too close. Too far. Teetering on the edge of orgasm.
“I came thinking about fucking your wicked little mouth,” Bishop breathed into Kit’s forced-open lips.
They were just rutting together, desperate as animals, but Kit felt Bishop all the way inside him. Like Bishop had clawed out a home for himself inside Kit’s hollow soul.
“I came thinking about you crying,” Bishop said, and Kit’s orgasm punched through like a gunshot.
No thoughts. Pure sensation. Kit trembled, and Bishop stroked him past the point of pleasure. Kit wanted that oversensitive pain to last forever, even as tears stung his eyes.
He barely heard Bishop’s own groan of completion. Barely felt the increased slickness against his overused cock.
Kisses feathered his face, tasting his tears. Bishop rolled to the side and pulled Kit into a hug. Finally, Kit shattered, sobbing into his chest.