Chapter 25
Twenty-Five
Ryell
“Alright,” I tell one of my assistants as I look at the wisdom teeth I just pulled, ensuring I have all the pieces, especially the roots.
“Pack his sockets and have his escort come back to sit with them until anesthesia wears off.” She nods, and I look at my nurse.
“Hang out here until he’s fully conscious. ”
“You got it, doc,” she says and goes around to the monitors to take her notes.
As I’m walking down the hallway back to my office, I pull out my phone and bring up the camera app so I can check on Lane.
Before I abducted him, I never carried my phone on the floor, instead leaving it in my office desk drawer and checking messages or calls when I finished my work for the day.
Now that I have him, I like being able to look at him when I want.
Right now, he’s in the kitchen, cooking. I’ll be off in about thirty minutes, and for the past week, Lane has had dinner ready as soon as I walked through the door. It’s all so domestic, so tame.
I can’t get enough.
I watch him move around the kitchen in his pretty panties, the thong he has on barely cupping his cock and balls. He looks fucking delicious. I hurry to my office so my staff doesn’t see my dick growing in my scrubs.
When I push through my office door, I see I have a guest sitting behind my desk.
And he has my sketch pad in his hands, flipping through my drawings of Lane.
Jacob looks up at me, a half-smile on his face. “Wow, you’re good, Ry. I didn’t think—”
Before he can finish his sentence, I’ve rounded the desk and pulled him to his feet by his collar, shoving him against the wall behind my desk.
“You do not get to see Lane like that.” I shake Jacob hard enough to rattle his teeth, but he looks completely unphased. “Those aren’t for you.”
“Oh, I’m sure. I don’t think I was supposed to see my brother-in-law with your spunk on his face.”
I growl, cocking my hand back to sock him in the jaw, but knocking at my office door stops me. Dropping my hand, I turn to spot Candice, a shocked look on her face.
Jacob is far better at putting people at ease than me, so he moves smoothly out of my grasp and cuffs me on the neck. “Okay, sorry. I swear I won’t touch your stuff again. You’ve always been so possessive with your things, little brother.”
Candice’s face transforms into a more amiable expression. “This is your brother?”
“Older brother,” I grunt. I absently think of how I’ve had this office for three years and this is the first time Jacob has stopped by.
She nods and hands me the patient’s chart. “It’s nice to meet you,” she says and shakes Jacob’s hand. “I have three younger brothers, and they hate sharing but love to take my belongings. So, I understand.” She winks at me and leaves my office.
I’m glad to see Jacob at least had the decency to close the sketch pad before I snatched him off his feet.
After Candice leaves my office and shuts my door, I round on my brother. “What are you doing here?”
He shrugs and sits on the edge of my desk, using his index finger to push the sketch pad away from him. I snatch it up and put it in my attaché case. Where it was when he went snooping.
“I came to ask if you wanted to grab dinner. But after seeing what you drew, I have a feeling you’ll want to get home to your boyfriend.”
“Fuck you, Jacob.”
He laughs and comes over to throw an arm around my shoulder. I try to shake him off, but he holds firm. “It’s okay to have a boyfriend, Ry. You’re almost forty, and you’ve never been in a relationship. It’s nice to see you as close to happy as you’ll ever get.”
“I’m not,” I grumble, though he’s not wrong.
Every morning that I wake up with Lane in my bed, this ball of lightness fills my chest, and it grows with each passing day. I’m not sure if it’s contentment or something more.
I feel happy with every kill. Happy when my victims are posed perfectly and happy when the bodies are found. What I feel for Lane is bigger than that, though I don’t know what that’s called.
“Lane is cooking dinner,” I tell Jacob as I sit behind my desk to enter my notes.
He gasps almost comically. “You let him walk around the house? How do you know he won’t run?”
“Made a deal with him.” I tell him what I told Lane to keep him under my roof. “And I equipped him with an ankle monitor.”
“You think that will keep him in the house? What if he cuts it off and tries to run while you’re in surgery? What then?”
I wave Jacob off, though that is a concern of mine. I’m putting far too much trust in an FBI agent than I should, but I believe Lane when he says he won’t run.
But surprisingly, I do trust him. That’ll mean my freedom if shit goes south, but I don’t think it will.
I’m a fucking fool when it comes to Lane, it seems.
Jacob grunts and looks like he’s not convinced but doesn’t comment. Instead, he tilts his head and stares at me, eyebrows bunched together. I stare back, not knowing what his issue is, but not backing down either way.
Then his eyes grow wide, and his smile spreads across his face. “Oh, my God. You really do love him. You’re in love with an FBI agent.”
I scoff and wave him off. “No, I’m not. I just enjoy having my boy around.”
Jacob sputters. “You’re his Daddy? Oh yeah, you’re in deep.” He sits back and crosses his arms over his chest, a smug smile on his face. “It’s nice to see you in love. You look younger, lighter. When do I get to meet him?”
“Fuck. Off,” I say through clenched teeth. I’m not in love.
Right?
That would be crazy, what with how Lane and I met. Besides that, there’s no longevity for us. Our relationship ends one of two ways: I let him go, and he turns me in, where I’ll spend the rest of my life in prison, or I kill him. We’re prolonging the inevitable since I’ll never let him go.
So why does the thought of killing Lane fill me with such dread that I almost can’t breathe?
Jacob makes a noise in the back of his throat, then rises from his chair. “When you figure shit out, let me know. I’m sure Alayna will love having another brother.”
“Get out of my office,” I grunt, and he laughs as he leaves.
I finish up my notes and head out, eager to get home to Lane.
That’s what it is. Eagerness. That’s why I like going home. I’m eager to see him. It has nothing to do with love.
Nothing.
When I step inside, I inhale deeply, the rich smell of whatever he’s cooking filling the air.
I round the corner, and when Lane glances over his shoulder at me, I smile.
“Hey, Daddy. How was work?” He turns the range off and moves the pot he was stirring from the burner.
“Good. Had two wisdom teeth removal surgeries and some consults.”
“Wisdom teeth removal is called…” He looks up at the ceiling, trying to recall the medical term for the procedure. “Odon-Odontec-”
“Odontectomy,” I answer, smiling at him.
“I was close.”
“Yeah, you were. You been okay here?”
He nods and strides over to me, then wraps his arms around my neck, offering me his lips. I capture them in a long kiss, my hands trailing down to his ass, squeezing the round globes. He moans into my mouth as I roll my hips, his hardening cock brushing against mine.
Lane wiggles out of my grasp, smiling up at me. “None of that. It’s dinner time. You’ve had a long day, and I want to feed my Daddy.”
That warm feeling in my chest grows as he walks away and pulls down plates for our dinner.
“Wait,” I tell him, grabbing him and pulling him behind me. “Let’s take a shower first. Then we can eat outside.”
I turn around to see Lane smiling widely.
“Okay, Daddy. It’ll be like a date.” His eyes take on a dreamy quality.
“It would be nice to go on a date with you. Out, you know?” I open my mouth, but he cuts me off.
“I know it’s not possible. I was just saying.
I would like to be out with my Daddy, is all. ”
My chest constricts. I want to give him everything he wants, but I can’t give him that.
He’s still a victim of kidnapping, and even as recent as last week, his partner was asking the public for clues on his disappearance.
If I take him out on a date, with his face plastered everywhere, someone will call the police, and he’ll be taken from me.
I can give him what I can now, in this house. That’s all.
Erasing my frown so I don’t make my boy sad, I say, “Yeah, we can have our date here.” I pull him in so I can whisper in his ear. “That means I can blow you under the table and not get arrested for indecent exposure.”
Lane giggles, loud and free, swatting me on the arm. “That’s a plus.”
I allow him to walk ahead of me so I can watch his ass in his panties. His rear is small but round and sexy, the perfect size for my hands. I love grabbing him there, love feeling the handful that belongs to me.
Wrapping my arm around his chest before he steps into the bathroom, I pull him back to me, kissing along the column of his neck. Lane moans, tipping his head back so I can get more skin into my mouth.
“Ry…” he mewls, gasping when I bite down on a sensitive spot. “We have to go on our date.”
I hum but don’t stop sucking and biting his skin, my marks showing up in sharp relief against his pale skin. “Soon. But right now, I want you, naked and under me.”
He sighs, melting back into me. “I missed you today,” he gasps, making my heart beat in triple time.
I missed him, too. I thought about him every second of the day. I’m glad I’ve been an oral surgeon long enough to do my job on autopilot.
Spinning Lane around, I grab him under his ass and hoist him into my arms. Lane gasps, and I swallow it down when I capture his lips in a languid kiss.
I don’t want him fast and hard tonight. I want to take my time and learn his body. I’ve drawn every inch of it, but I haven’t touched and tasted all of him.
Jacob’s words echo in the back of my mind as I lie Lane down on the bed, but I push them away. This isn’t love. This is wanting to know my boy’s body in its entirety.
That’s all.