Chapter 6
KAIRO
The beginning of September brings cold winds from Lake Michigan. There’s a distinct change in the temperature, which is something that always surprises me. As if Mother Nature looks at the calendar and sees we’ve officially hit September and can now usher in the cold.
My crew has been successful in returning the bullying behavior of the current regime’s gestapo.
Between the live reveals and killings of their agents from IP addresses originating from detention centers all over the country to returning their cold kills in the streets, there’s a sharp turn in Chicago’s atmosphere.
Fear is everywhere, but hope is loud. The gestapo is afraid.
Fewer and fewer show up on the streets. We track them.
The city tracks them. No longer using internet apps that are hacked by the federal government, we’re using apps that connect via Bluetooth only.
Pings pop up all over the city, noting where a confirmed masked killer is and what they’re doing.
There are fewer on the streets now. They’re scared.
Shockingly—hear the sarcasm in my head?—the tyrant in the Oval Office is now threatening to send in the National Guard.
Too bad for him, the Governor has already called them in to stand against the gestapo.
That means a lowly band of untrained domestic terrorists isn’t only meeting the resistance of…
I suppose the resistance, right?... but also the fucking military and local law enforcement.
This is what it means to stand against tyranny. This is what it takes to fight for our rights and peace. This is what rich people should be doing with their money—not hurting those less fortunate and unable, but protecting them.
With a paper list in hand—yes, more fucking paper—I walk down the hall toward my office. It’s late. While I should have gone home hours ago, I’d stopped by the execution room and spent several hours watching my crew make an example of modern-day nazis.
I know it’s difficult for them not to speak. Silence is mandatory. We don’t want anything at all traceable, and that includes voices. Everything they wear is straight off the rack of local chain retailers. Nothing custom. Nothing high-end. Nothing remarkable.
I’m proud of my crew. Proud of their bravery and courage to fight back when many of them are targeted by racial profiling by those they’re hunting. These are the faces of people taking back our city. Faces that the public doesn’t know. They won’t know.
I do a double-take when I see flickering from my office. Not shadows exactly, but light dancing. I pause, feet slowing as I stare at it. A fire? Is there a fire in my office?
My heart is already skipping around because my gut knows that it’s not about what I’ll find in my office, but who. While I haven’t given it much credence, there’s a chance that I’ve stayed at the office so late because I haven’t seen Malcolm today.
I hate that I want to see him. Everything inside me wants him to go away because I’m enjoying his company, and that’s unacceptable. He’s my brother’s minion. My brother’s friend. A Van Doren employee, even if freelance.
My chest tightens as I approach my office. My breathing feels shallow, no matter how I demand my body stop reacting.
The room is lit by candles flickering. Tall tapers with short flames dance in the dim room. Covering every surface.
In the middle of the room is a small, round table covered with long, dark linen. There are two plates covered with metal lids. Tall glasses of wine. Flowers in the middle of the table.
Malcolm is standing at the window overlooking the city.
He’s not dressed in his usual careless cargo pants and too-tight tee.
He’s wearing tight slacks that wrap around a fucking ass I can’t look away from for a second.
They stretch around thick thighs. His shirt is tight enough that I not only see every line of the muscles of his back, but tucks into his trousers and leather belt, not taking away from the rest of him.
The light gray of his pants and the white of his shirt offset the deeper bronze of his skin and the black lines of his close-cut facial hair along his jaw. I’m sure his eyes look black in the dimness of the room.
He turns, and our eyes lock. My heart does not jump into my chest when he turns to face me. My body does not heat up. I do not break out into a sudden sweat.
His smile most certainly does not send tingles of warmth skittering along my skin and into my fingertips.
“Hey, baby girl,” he says, voice deep and quiet.
Fucking Christ. I despise the way those two words make something inside me unlock. I’m not a girl. I fucking hate that he calls me baby girl. I hate the way it makes me feel small and fragile. Like I might shatter. Like I need protection.
My feet refuse to move from where they have me planted in the doorway. Malcolm approaches. With each step closer, my heartbeat picks up pace until his hand cups the side of my face. I swallow the pathetic sound that’s trying to escape my throat.
“So beautiful,” he murmurs.
I press my lips together, refusing to give in to whatever the fuck he’s trying to do to me.
“Come here, baby. Come, let me hold you.”
I’m not sure when he began this, but over the last week, he hasn’t only begun kissing me when he enters the room but before he leaves as well.
It’s almost always just a peck. Not, like, a quick peck, but…
something more than you’d kiss a parent.
Yesterday, much to my fucking horror, he pulled me to my feet and embraced me.
Not a bro hug. Not a familial hug. He held me like a fucking lover, and something inside me audibly snapped. I fucking clung to him like he’d just pulled me from a goddamn well. Like he saved my life.
It was the worst experience of my life. It left me shaken for the rest of the day.
Malcolm takes the papers from my hand and sets them aside.
I have enough presence of mind to make sure he hasn’t set them on fire with a candle, but then I’m trapped in Malcolm’s presence.
He gently pulls me into the room, giving me some semblance of control.
As if giving me the option to pull away.
I should. I have to. I want to. But I don’t.
I can’t. My traitorous everything follows willingly, if not eagerly.
Malcolm pulls me against his chest, and fuck if I can do anything other than sink into his embrace, just as I did yesterday.
The straining inside me feels tangible. Like I can feel too much pressure wrapped around long, thin pillars made of dried pasta.
Bending. Bending. Again, they’re going to snap. This time, I might just have a fucking meltdown.
Malcolm holds me, rocking me gently. That’s when I realize that there’s soft music playing. We’re… dancing?
“You’ve had a long day,” Malcolm says quietly. One of his hands flexes at the back of my head, gently holding me against him and massaging my scalp. The other is secured around my waist, keeping my body softly but firmly pressed flush to his.
I feel every hard line. I feel his dick against my pelvis. Is he hard, or is he just that big that I feel him even when he’s soft and pressed against me in tight pants? I’m not sure if I’m intrigued or terrified.
Wait. What the hell am I saying?
“You feel so stressed, Kairo,” he says quietly. His hand drops lower, so it rests right above my ass.
His touch isn’t inherently sexual, and yet, the way his hand moves down my spine reminds me that I’ve only had the company of my hand for…
a really long fucking time. I squeeze my eyes closed as my dick enjoys the way his hands move over me.
It’s no longer only comforting but feels like the sensual stroking of… something.
My fingers dig into his back as I struggle to convince my dick that we’re not doing this. Malcolm is dangerous. He’s fucking up my carefully constructed solitude, and I can’t let him shatter me. I won’t. I can’t.
“Hmm,” Malcolm hums, and I’m very aware of the tenor change in his tone. Deeper. Huskier. His lips brush the side of my face. “Is there something I can do to relieve some of your stress, baby girl?”
Stop calling me baby girl, I shout silently in my head. I don’t care if something inside me enjoys it. I don’t. I hate it. Fuck that stupid feeling that quivers like a damn child with tears in their eyes every time he says it.
My breath catches as his hands brush the top of my ass. “Be my good boy and tell me what you want, Kairo.”
Baby girl. Good boy. He makes my head spin with the constant contradictions.
His hand drops further, and I can’t inhale. He adjusts me against him, and his thigh presses between my legs. I groan. I fucking groan, which makes me wince.
“Tell me what you want,” he repeats, voice quiet.
“Get off,” I grit out.
I’d like to pretend I’m demanding he let me go. You know, get off me. Malcolm knows what those words actually mean, though.
“You want to get off?”
My traitorous body nods.
I give an undignified yelp when he suddenly picks me up. Malcolm kicks the door shut and then sets me on top of my desk. Something in me almost panics when he begins backing away, and my grip tightens on him.
He stops. Unfortunately for me, now we’re looking at each other. Eye to eye. His expression is soft as he brushes his hand over my cheek in a way that makes me want to fucking sob. I haven’t cried in years, and I’m choked up like I need to sob right now or I’m going to fall apart.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Malcolm assures me quietly. “Promise. You can trust me, Kairo.”
No, I can’t. Doesn’t he understand? I can only trust myself.
Swallowing, I have to force my fingers to release him. To keep him from seeing the way my hands tremble, I press them to the top of my desk. With one hand, he deftly undoes my pants. I can’t look away, even as my face burns when he reaches into my pants to fish out my cock.
Once more, Malcolm hums in appreciation. His hand moves over my length. I’m so overwhelmed with the constant internal struggle that I’m fighting the darkness that licks at the edges of my vision.
“Relax, baby girl. Let me take care of you. Can you do that for me?”
Somehow, I find I’m nodding.
He smiles. The smile makes my stomach dance. “Good boy.”
His face drops, and my jaw follows as I watch with wide, wide eyes while Malcolm goes down my body. He presses his face to my chest and along my stomach until he swallows my cock whole. Everything in me jumps from the sudden wet heat.
I dig my hands into his hair, but it’s not long enough, so I grip his head from the lightheadedness that’s making me feel unsteady. My hips jerk up as he works on my dick. I want to tell him I can’t remember the last time I got off, so it’s probably going to be in thirty seconds.
The words come out as a jumbled series of moans.
Reluctantly, the fight in me begins to fade as Malcolm sucks my dick.
Working me like a fucking expert, and I succumb to what he’s doing.
I’m not sure if I grip him as tightly as I am because I’m struggling to keep my orgasm under control or because I’m terrified that if I lose contact, he’ll simply disappear.