Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
RED
Red waited until he heard the bathroom door close and the water start in earnest before he began his patrol the way he always did—methodical, silent, checking each window latch twice, testing the door, scanning the dark beyond the glass for movement that never came.
The cabin had settled into night, the only sounds the whisper of wind through the trees and the muted rush of the shower down the hall.
Secure. As secure as it was going to get.
He checked the monitors again and returned to the bedroom, hunting for the T-shirt and sleep shorts he’d worn the previous night.
Routine. Normal. Nothing to think about.
He stripped off his hoodie first, then hooked his fingers into the hem of his T-shirt and dragged it up and over his head in one smooth motion.
“Nice.”
Red froze for half a second, vision still muffled in cotton. He yanked the shirt the rest of the way off and blinked into the dim lamplight.
A towel wrapped around his waist, Kit was leaning in the doorway like he’d been there a while, shoulders dappled with water braced against the frame, nipples taut with the rings catching the light, his eyes roaming over Red in a way that was anything but subtle.
Heat flared low in Red’s gut, sharp and immediate. He tamped it down the same way he did everything else—by locking his expression into something flat and unimpressed.
“Thought you were in the bathroom,” he said, reaching for the T-shirt on the bed and pulling it on without hurry.
“I was,” Kit replied, pushing off the frame and wandering in like he owned the place.
“Forgot my—” He gestured vaguely back toward the bathroom, clearly not caring about the excuse.
His gaze dropped again, tracking over Red’s chest, the faded ink on his ribs, the old scars that mapped his bodyguard career in pale lines.
Red could tell him how he’d received each scar.
“You’ve been hiding all that under leather and attitude? Tragic.”
Red grabbed his pajama pants and stepped into them, turning slightly away, more to give his hands something to do than out of modesty. “You still need the shower?”
Kit grinned, unrepentant. “Hmmm, I think I need you more.”
Red tied the drawstring a little tighter than necessary and finally looked at him properly. He was all long lines and bare skin and deliberate innocence. Watching. Always watching.
Testing.
“Something you need?” Red asked.
Kit’s expression softened for just a flicker before the bratty edge came back. “Just appreciating the view.”
Red ignored that comment and shoved the T-shirt over his head. Kit was still there, waiting for him, his dark eyes openly locked on Red’s body.
“Go pick a movie while I use the bathroom.”
Red didn’t wait for Kit’s reply as he padded into the bathroom, blinking at the steam. God, he wanted to throw his boy down onto the bed and make love to him…
Make love? What was he thinking about?
He leaned against the sink and looked at himself in the mirror, seeing the dark smudges under his eyes. But he looked…happy. For the first time in years. Like he was doing something that he’d been born to do.
Red hadn’t seen that expression for a long time. He’d gotten up, gone to work, come home, gone to bed. Rinse, repeat. There had been no fun in his life.
Kit wasn’t fun. He was work. They were in danger. Red needed to focus.
Who was he kidding? When was the last time Red had danced like that, with or without a client?
Red gave his reflection a wry smile. He could make his excuses till those cattle with the big horns bellowed—his mom had had a weird obsession with cows and had decorated her whole house with them—but he was having the best time he’d had since Davie had walked out the door.
“Red?”
He turned to see Kit standing in the bathroom doorway, his brows furrowed and chewing on his bottom lip.
“Is everything all right?” Red asked.
“It was quiet. You were…off. I was worried,” Kit admitted. From the way Kit was clenching and unclenching his hands, Red could see he’d been genuinely concerned.
Red strode over and took Kit’s hands, enveloping them with his larger ones. “I’m okay. More than okay.”
Kit peered up at him, under his dark lashes. “Are you sure?”
He squeezed Kit’s hands. “I’m sure. I didn’t mean to worry you. I was just thinking.”
“About what?”
“About how much fun this afternoon was.”
Kit smirked just a little. “Even being caught by Ronan and Mo?”
Red groaned and rested his forehead on the top of Kit’s head. “Don’t remind me. Mo’s never going to let me forget it. And the cake. But yeah, that was embarrassing but fun too.”
“We’ll have to do it again.”
“We will. Give me a minute and I’ll be out of here.”
Kit hesitated, then nodded slowly. “I’ll go choose the movie.”
Red watched him go. That was something he needed to factor in.
Kit needed reassurance. The boy could be bratty and tease him, but only if he knew Red was there to back him up.
Kit was a chaos demon but only if he knew he had a support network.
Before it had been his brother and the club.
But they’d ripped that away from him and now he was left with nothing.
Except Red.
Kit had him and Red would make sure he knew it. He was a Biker Daddy Bodyguard and maybe now he knew what that meant.
Red cleaned his teeth before he got distracted again and splashed water on his face. Then he headed out to see what horror of a movie Kit had picked for him.
It could have been worse.
Not much worse.
But on a scale of one to the plunging plumber, it was hovering somewhere around catastrophic-with-popcorn.
“You want to watch Trolls?”
Red blinked at the question. Kit stood by the couch like he’d just offered up the solution to world peace instead of a neon-colored children’s movie.
Kit’s smile broke open, bright and unguarded. “I love Trolls. Don’t you love it, Daddy?”
There it was. That word. Dropped in soft and sweet and entirely too deliberate.
Red pressed his lips together to keep the grin from escaping. Wicked, wicked boy. He knew exactly which nerve to tap, exactly how to make Red remember things he’d filed away under complications and don’t even start.
Because Trolls wasn’t just a movie. It was that afternoon at the clubhouse he’d gotten himself into his first babysitting gig. His boy had been working a job across town, leaving Red with nothing but time and a restless engine under him, so he’d ridden out there looking for noise and found…Kit.
Sulking. Suspicious. Arms folded like he’d been personally wronged by the universe.
“Babysitting,” Tony had said, already halfway out the door, which should have been Red’s first clue to run.
Neither of them had wanted it. Kit had glared at him like he was the last person on earth he’d pick for company. Red had sprawled in a chair, boots on the table, trying to look like he wasn’t counting the minutes before he could bolt.
“You’re not putting on anything loud,” Kit had informed him, grabbing the remote like a weapon. “We’re watching Trolls.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Then I scream every time you blink.”
Ten minutes later they were both leaning forward, elbows on their knees, arguing over whether Branch needed a hug or a personality transplant.
Red had made some running commentary about survival rates in a world that bright, and Kit had laughed—really laughed, head tipped back, all the prickles gone out of him.
It had been…easy.
Which was the dangerous part.
Back in the present, Red dragged a hand over his mouth, trying to smooth away the memory before it softened him too much.
“You’re weaponizing animated musicals now?” he asked.
Kit’s eyes sparkled. “You loved it.”
“I tolerated it.”
“You sang along.”
“I did not.”
“You knew the words to the snack song.”
Red exhaled through his nose, losing the fight with his smile. The room still felt like a temporary thing, not their’s, and definitely not safe, but Kit standing there, hopeful and infuriating and calling him Daddy like it meant something, made it feel almost…normal.
“Fine,” Red said, dropping onto the couch with all the resignation of a man accepting his fate. “But if you start quoting life lessons at me, I’m turning it off.”
Kit flopped down beside him, shoulder bumping Red’s arm like he belonged there. “You’re the one who cried when they all hugged.”
“I had dust in my eye.”
“You had feelings.”
“Don’t spread lies about me.”
Kit laughed, bright and warm, and for a moment, the past forty-eight hours didn’t matter.
The danger they didn’t really understand was unimportant.
It was just the two of them, and a ridiculous movie and a memory that had snuck up on Red and taken root somewhere he didn’t want to examine too closely.
Wicked boy, he thought again, but there was no heat in it now—only something softer, something he was still trying very hard not to name.
Somewhere during the movie, Red realized Kit was now snuggled against his chest, his thumb in his mouth, and Red held him close, fingers tangled in his hair. He wasn’t sure when that happened.
He looked down at Kit. “Are you awake.”
From the mumbling and sucking noises, he assumed that was a yes.
“Are you watching the movie?”
“Comfy.” Kit sighed and pressed his face into Red’s chest.
That was a no, then, but as Red was pretty comfortable too, he stayed where he was, caressing Kit’s hair.
At some point, something buzzed against Red’s butt.
He cranked open one eyelid and realized he’d fallen asleep.
From the chirruping noises, Kit was also napping.
The movie had finished, unwatched by either of them.
Red was sure Kit would make him watch Trolls again.
They’d have to move soon and go to bed, but he was in no hurry.
Then his ass cheek vibrated and he realized it was his phone. He dug around, trying to extract his phone and not disturb Kit.
“Yeah?” he grunted.
“Everything okay? You didn’t check in,” Jace said.
Red sighed. He was going to catch heat for that somewhere down the line. “Sorry, we fell asleep watching TV.”
“No worries.”