16. Theo
I sat alone in my study.
Like a gargoyle, I hadn’t moved in two days.
The sun rose and set in the same places, but my life didn’t change.
Astrid didn’t text me.
I didn’t text her.
I didn’t know what the fuck to do.
Bolton hadn’t contacted me or responded in any way. Had no idea if he knew I was the one who’d picked off his men one by one on the street. Maybe he didn’t care as much as he should because he was distracted.
Distracted that his wife had left him.
The woman I’d bedded was married to my enemy. His last name was her last name. It was hard to shake, hard to look past. When I was in the same room with her, she felt like a different person. She was innocent of any crime, but I still felt betrayed by the association.
And I felt blindsided by it too.
I didn’t know if she was still at the hotel. If she and Bolton had talked. If they would get back together, or she was set on her decision. I didn’t prefer her married, but I preferred her with no expectations. Because while I did care for her, dinners and hookups were all I had to offer. Her shovel had gone as deep as it could before it hit rock, and she would never go deeper than that.
I hoped she hadn’t left him for me, because she would be disappointed.
Axel texted me. Just making sure you’re still breathing.
Not breathing. Smoking.
I’ll take it. Figured out what to do about Bolton yet?
I didn’t respond.
That’s a no.
She left him.
Then you should be balls deep in her instead of talking to me.
I’m not.
That’s it. I’m coming over.
I didn’t shut down the offer, because I’d been sitting there alone for two days without any direction. I was a man of action. I just did shit when I felt like doing it. But now, my hands were bound by my invisible cords, and my brain had ceased to function.
Almost an hour passed before he dropped into the armchair across from me. I’d already put out my cigar a while ago, so he didn’t light up one himself. I must have looked like shit since he didn’t fire off questions or taunts. He sank into the chair and watched me.
“It’s the first time in my life where I don’t know what to do.”
“If you torture and kill Bolton, she doesn’t need to know it was you.”
“But I would know.”
“You’re the one who told me I should just kill Dante. Now you know how complicated that would have been. But in my case, I loved Scarlett. And you…I don’t know what your deal is.”
“I care for her, but that’s it.”
“That’s it?” he asked.
“I’m afraid she left him for me, even though I have nothing to offer her.”
“You said it was clear you didn’t want anything.”
“I thought it was.”
“Then why do you assume that?”
Because of the way she looked at me. The way she touched me. The way she said she wanted to be with me without something separating us. The way…the way the air felt when we stood in a room together. “I just do.”
“The fact that you didn’t tear Bolton’s head off means your feelings for her are stronger than your need for revenge.”
“It means I’m a disgrace to my brother. I know.”
“Knowing Killian, he would have told you to pick the woman because he’s already dead. No amount of revenge is going to change that. And it’s not your fault that Killian got killed. That was the result of his own tumultuous decisions.”
I wasn’t sure if I could live with myself if I didn’t bury my brother. If I didn’t find a rightful place for his bones. Maybe Bolton didn’t even have them anymore. Maybe whatever he would give me would belong to someone else. I could do a DNA test to figure out that since we were identical.
“I know you feel more for her than you say, Theo. And I know why you pretend.”
I tried not to think of her because it was easier not to.
“Give it a chance with Astrid.”
“She’s not even divorced yet.”
“Even better. You can take it slow.”
“I’m not ready for a relationship.”
“Asshole, I hate to break it to you, but you’re in one. You’re in a very complicated, very messy relationship. Just tell her you need to take it slow. Like fucking slooooooow. No pressure. No expectations. Just see where it goes.”
I stared at the cold fireplace.
“Theo.”
I wouldn’t look at him.
“Your other choice was to torture and kill Bolton—and you’ve clearly decided not to do that. So this is the only choice. You’ve chosen it.” He continued to stare at me. “Now go get your woman.”
When I entered the Ritz, I made sure to take the back route. Slip in through the back door after one of the kitchen staff took out the trash. If she was still there, that meant Bolton had eyes on the building—especially if he knew about me.
I took the service elevator to her floor then headed down the hallway that I’d walked before. I wasn’t sure if she was still there, if Bolton had dragged her back home, or if she’d moved in to an apartment once she had a second to breathe.
I knocked, unsure if she or a stranger would answer.
Footsteps made the floor creak slightly, and then the light over the peephole vanished as a shadow passed across.
Then the door opened, and Astrid was behind it.
Her eyes were hollow. Her fair skin was free of makeup. She wore a baggy shirt and pajama shorts, clearly not expecting visitors. Her reaction to me was subdued, that spark in her eyes stomped out by my boot. She pulled the door open wider so I could pass through but didn’t actually say anything to me.
I entered the suite I’d visited before, and it looked exactly the same, as if time had been passing for her with the same painful slowness it’d been passing for me. Her suitcase was still in the corner, and a room service table was pushed against the wall, the plates mostly full of food she hadn’t touched.
The depression filled the room like smoke.
I looked at her once again, seeing her arms crossed over her chest, completely cut off from me after I’d crushed her. “I’m sorry for the way I was before.”
Her eyes were on the floor, her hands gripping the insides of her arms, her long hair beautifully placed around her shoulders. Even on her darkest night, she had a light so alluring.
“Not my best day.”
She continued to avoid my stare like that apology wasn’t good enough.
“Have you spoken to Bolton?”
After a pause, her eyes lifted to look at me. “He came by yesterday. We talked for hours and hours…and then he finally left.”
Then she hadn’t changed her mind.
“I can’t go back to him, not when I feel this way.”
“When you feel what way?”
“When I don’t see him the same way anymore…when I have feelings for someone else. He could sleep with other people and keep it purely physical, but I’m not that way. I’m an emotional person. I connect emotionally, not just physically.”
I watched the emotions move over her face as she spoke, watched her battle the tide that wanted to sweep her away.
“If he hadn’t asked me to end the arrangement, I’m not sure how long I would have stayed. But I don’t think I would have stayed forever. It’d been gnawing at me for a while, day and night, forming ulcers in my stomach. With every passing day, my lungs started to heave as I began to suffocate.”
“Do you feel better now?” Because she looked worse than she ever had.
There was a long pause, a heavy one, full of so many things she never said. “I-I didn’t expect to get divorced. I thought we would be together forever. Just a few months ago, I wanted to start a family…and now, I want to start a new life. It’s hard because I really did love him. When he told me he wanted to be with other people, I still loved him. But over the last few months, that love changed. It stopped being enough.” She swallowed and paused, forcing her eyes to remain dry. “He told me every man wants to fuck someone else besides his wife, but he was honest enough to tell me, and that somehow makes him better than all the rest. That he could have just cheated on me behind my back, but?—”
“But he decided to cheat on you to your face,” I said coldly. “Yes, very honorable.” I hated Bolton for my own reasons, but the more I listened to her, the more I realized he was just an insufferable human being.
Her eyes latched on to mine.
“Some men want to fuck around. Men like him, who want a wife to fulfill a role, to hold her end of a business deal she didn’t know she was making. She signed her name on the dotted line but didn’t read the terms and conditions because she assumed she didn’t need to. And other men…” Memories flashed across my mind, brief and sudden, bright colors and then rain clouds of gray. “Other men commit to one woman for the rest of their life because that’s the only woman they want until they die. Men like Axel…and others like him.”
Her eyes were locked on mine as she listened to me speak. She stopped blinking, regarding my stare intently. “And…what about you?”
I knew what she wanted from me, what she would never ask. “I’m a one-woman kind of man…when the time is right.”
Her eyes flicked back and forth between mine, wanting to know more.
“I’m possessive. I’m jealous as fuck. Protective. Borderline psychotic. If someone tried to touch my woman, it would be the last thing they’d ever do. I’m too busy being into her to be interested in anyone else. I’m nothing like Bolton—but I’m sure you already figured that out.”
“But you pay for sex and don’t take women out.”
She’d approached this topic once before, but I’d brushed her away. It was the red zone, off-limits. “Because I don’t want to be in a relationship. It takes commitment, a level of commitment I’m incapable of right now.”
Her eyes took me in with a hint of sadness. “Why are you incapable of it?”
I got lost in her eyes, almost tempted to tell her the truth, to share my hardship with another person besides Axel. I shared my truth with Axel, but I didn’t wear my heart on my sleeve. “Because I am. After what Bolton did to you, I’m surprised you don’t feel the same.”
Her eyes flicked down for a second as she considered that. “I probably would feel that way…if I hadn’t met you.” It took her a moment to look at me again, embarrassed by what she had said.
I didn’t want to hear those words, but I respected her for saying them.
“It’ll be a while before I’m officially divorced because I know Bolton will make it as difficult as possible. It’s not exactly the ideal conditions to start a new relationship…or deepen an existing one. Just because Bolton and I are in the process of separating doesn’t mean I don’t still have feelings for him, which isn’t fair to you or anyone else. So, when you say you aren’t ready for that level of commitment, that’s okay, because I’m not either. But I would like to pursue this, at whatever pace is best for us.” The hopeful burn remained in her eyes as she stared at me, openly wearing her heart on her sleeve, when I refused to do the same for her.
It was easy to get lost in her eyes when she spoke like that, with pure vulnerability, like she trusted me despite the skull diamond I wore on my hand, despite the fact that I was in the same business as the man who had betrayed her. Bolton and I were both black sheep, both dangerous, but she looked at me like I was different. “Relationships lead to commitment, and commitment leads to marriage—the type of relationship I never intend to offer. The last thing I want to do is waste your time, sweetheart. Please understand this isn’t an empty warning. I say what I mean, and I mean what I say. You said you want to have a family, so you don’t have much time to waste on someone who won’t give that to you. With me, you get what you see, hear the truth even when you prefer the lie, so I’ll never disappoint you the way Bolton has. But I also won’t give you as much as he has.”
She absorbed my words with a heavy stare, her eyes still locked on mine. Her gaze didn’t hold disappointment. But she seemed to take my words seriously because she digested them during a long bout of silence. “I understand.”
I waited for more, for her to elaborate on exactly what she wanted, but I refused to push.
“Yes, I’m aware of the constant ticking of the clock, but it’s hard to imagine being in that place anytime soon. Right now, all I have is the present, and the only man I desire is you, regardless of what you have to offer.”
I felt like the biggest jackass for wanting that answer, for watching her settle for less than she deserved just because it benefited me. Instead of giving her false hope to entice her, I was honest with her, even if that meant I’d lose her. She still wanted me, and I felt like shit about that because I was dangling candy in front of a kid—and the kid always ate the candy, even if they knew it would make them sick.
Now that the storm clouds had passed over our skies, it was just the two of us, staring at each other, an invisible magnetic force slowly pulling us closer together. She had the same confident stare that I possessed, just with a hint of softness like a flower in the spring sunshine. I’d been with a lot of women, but none of them wanted me the way she did, like her desire was deeper than the surface, like she wanted to dig her hands into my skin and reach my soul underneath.
My restraint broke like a stretched rubber band, and I moved to her, sliding my hand deep into her hair as I angled her chin back, preparing her mouth for my kiss. My lips met hers, and as always, there was a break in time, a pause that stopped the world from turning. It resumed a second later, and I deepened my kiss, my arm moving across the small of her back and squeezing her close.
She rose on her tiptoes as one hand found my chest, and her arm hooked halfway around my neck, as far as she could reach when she was at a serious height disadvantage while barefoot. But her kiss was passionate, like she’d been wanting this for every second of every day for years.
I scooped her into my chest so she could hook both of her arms easily around my neck, our mouths level so she wouldn’t have to crane her slim neck so far to kiss me. My hands squeezed her ass in her little shorts as I guided her to the bed, my dick anxious since the moment she’d accepted my terms. Her legs were so toned and sexy, her toenails painted a pale blue like the sky. I pictured those little feet against my chest as I nailed her on the hotel bed.
I laid her back and hooked my fingers into her bottoms before I pulled back, tugging her shorts and the panties underneath with me. I dragged both down her toned legs and revealed the sex that I could taste on my tongue just by looking at it.
She watched me stare at her, her body propped on her elbows, her breathing elevated.
I yanked my shirt over my head and undressed, my knees sinking into the mattress when I returned to the bed.
She pulled off her shirt and revealed her tits underneath because she wasn’t wearing a bra.
I moved on top of her then flinched.
I didn’t bring anything.
My thoughts had been in a lot of places at once, not on sex, so I’d forgotten a crucial component to our reunion.
She seemed to read the hesitation in my eyes. “I’m on the pill.”
I’d only been with one woman bareback…and that was a long time ago.
“And I got tested the other day,” she said. “But if you’re not comfortable, it’s okay.”
My arms scooped behind her knees, and I positioned her underneath me as my mouth sealed over hers once more. The kiss burned even hotter now that I knew where it would lead, when I would feel her with nothing in between us.
She seemed to feel the same way because her nails clawed at my back before I was even inside her. She even panted in my mouth between our kisses like we were already engaged in our sexy dance.
I directed my head to her entrance and felt the wet kiss of her body, the slickness that coated my skin at the first touch. Warm, tight, anxious…it was a whole different experience. An experience that surpassed my one-night stands and the sex I’d paid for. I pushed until I burrowed my head inside and then sank. “Fuck…” It wasn’t just slick and tight–it was intimate.
The most intimate I’d been with anyone in a long time.
I pressed as far as I could, almost balls deep, listening to her suck in a deep breath when it hurt.
She gave a small wince that looked so sexy as her nails dug in like anchors on the sea floor.
I withdrew slightly so she could relax, removing myself for a moment until I slid back inside, coated in her slickness, my girth squeezed by her tightness. It was so different from the last time we were together that it felt like the first time.
She could feel it too, her breaths shaky and accompanied by sexy little whimpers.
Slow and easy was the most I could do, my face just inches above hers, turned on by her reaction alone.
Her hands squeezed my thick arms before her nails dug into my flesh again. Then she gripped my shoulders, drove her fingers into my hair, touched me everywhere as she took my thickness over and over. The women who were paid to be with me wanted me, but Astrid touched me like she needed me. Her eyes were always affectionate. She was always desperate, like I was the only man in the world who could fix her problems.
It was so good I wasn’t sure if I would ever get used to it, feeling her creamy flesh encased around my length, her grip tighter than the body of a viper. My hips started to thrust harder on their own, my dick taking the reins from my mind because he had the most blood of the two of us.
Once I was inside her, all I wanted to do was come, come like a teenage boy who was feeling a woman for the first time. The hormones were stronger, the desperation at its peak. It must be because it was skin to skin…or maybe it was another reason.
Her hand went to my ass and tugged me inside. “It’s okay.”
A burst of pleasure shot up my spine at her words, my dick even harder at her request to fill her. She watched my struggle and my restraint, saw the red tint in my face, the way I pushed through the sex rather than fucked her like I normally did.
I couldn’t deny the invitation, not when the feel of her sex was so damn good. It was all I could think about, head high in the clouds, the desire making my dick so stiff it hurt. After a couple thrusts, I released, a heavy growl coming from my throat.
Her nails dug into my ass, and she pulled on me hard, wanting all of my dick as I came inside her like it turned her on to watch me fill her.
There was no greater pleasure than to come inside a woman, and I’d forgotten how good it was. To give my seed to a woman so anxious to receive it. To feel her warmth sheath me in gratitude.
Her nails loosened on my ass, her little body still folded with her flexibility.
I filled her with a load, but my dick was still stiff as a tree trunk. Still at attention and ready to serve. I started to rock into her again, but this time, I gave it to her hard, prepared to make up for that poor performance.
She gave the sexiest moan when she felt me blast off, her nails dragging down my chest as I fucked her just the way she liked, hitting my pelvic bone right against her clit.
Her skin glowed and her eyes watered. Her forehead shone with sweat even though she was only lying there and enjoying it. “Yes…” One hand went to my ass, and she clenched it with her sharp nails, pushing her body back into mine so our skin slapped against each other as we fucked.
The skin of her neck and face turned bright red, and her eyes started to glisten with impending tears. She was almost there, right at the edge, about to be swept away in the euphoria my dick was desperate to give her. “Theo.” She whispered my name with her eyes closed, then she opened them again to lock her stare on me.
“Come on, sweetheart.” I already wanted to come inside her again, her pussy the smoothest scotch I’d ever tasted, the best cigar I’d ever smoked.
She started with a quiet moan, but once the fuse was lit, her moan got louder, her clenched eyes releasing tears on each side. Her body gripped mine with an iron fist, and she came all over my dick, sheathing me in her cream and her warmth, saying my name with a voice that cracked.
Her sexy little performance pushed me over the edge, and I came with a grunt, filling her little pussy again, dumping another load of my desire in her tightness where it belonged. This time, my dick started to soften because he needed to reload.
But when I tried to pull away, she held on to my ass. “I want to do it again.”
I smirked. “I need a couple minutes, sweetheart.”
She grabbed my face and pulled my lips to her. “Then I’ll wait.”
I lay beside her in the king-sized bed, the heater kicking on and off throughout the night. It was the first time I’d slept with her somewhere else besides my home, so it was hard to relax. Bolton would have constant eyes on her, and even though the curtains had been drawn shut the entire time, I could still feel his stare.
I’d just come inside his wife—several times—and if that wasn’t a form of revenge, I didn’t know what was.
Killian would smirk at that.
I checked my phone on my nightstand, and it was quiet. No messages from anyone. It was almost five in the morning.
I looked at her beside me, dead asleep with her arms around me like I was her favorite teddy bear. Her hair was a mess, but the sexiest mess I’d ever seen. And she had a little smile on her face, like she was happy even in her dreams.
I hated to leave, but I shouldn’t stay. Not when her relationship with Bolton was so tumultuous, when he still struggled to let her go. I wasn’t scared of him, but I preferred to be with her on my turf rather than the unknown.
I left the bed and got dressed.
She was so tired she didn’t even notice.
I checked the peephole to make sure the hallway was vacant before I walked out. I took the service elevator like I did last time and snuck out the back of the hotel, quickly swallowed by the city.
I’d walked to the hotel, so I walked home, enjoying the city in the early morning, taking the alleyways between the buildings and the shortcuts only a resident would know. I entered the gates of my property and stepped inside the home that was my fortress, the one place where I could stare out the window without worrying about taking a bullet, because the glass was bulletproof. The place where I hid in plain sight, my walls impossible to pass unless you rammed it with a Hummer.
But the second I stepped inside, I knew something was amiss.
Not because of anything I could see…could only feel.
I stood in the foyer and noticed how bright the dimmers were set. There was a different smell, the scents of cider and cigarette smoke. I stared at the staircase before I reached for my gun tucked in the back of my jeans.
My butler knew when I was on the property and always came to greet me, regardless of the hour, and the fact that he wasn’t there told me he physically couldn’t be. “I hope you took your boots off before you came inside.” I walked around the stairs with the gun at my side, unsure how they’d bypassed the security measures, how they’d infiltrated a place that couldn’t be broken in to.
“My boots are propped on your coffee table as we speak.” The voice came from the study, farther down past the staircase, the place where I spent most of my time.
With my gun still in hand, I came around the corner and spotted Bolton in my armchair, dirty shoes on my coffee table, drink in front of him, a lit cigar in his mouth because he really had made himself at home.
With a bomb strapped across his chest.
My gun had been pointed at his head, but I lowered it to my side.
My butler was in the other armchair, appearing still and calm except for his trembling hands.
Bolton pulled the cigar out of his mouth and rested it in his fingertips, not afraid of the ash that might land in the wrong spot on his chest. “You made yourself at home in my house.” He smashed the cigar in my ashtray. “Thought I’d do the same to you.” He nodded to the couch. “Take a seat, Theo.”
I glanced at my butler then looked at Bolton again. “He’s got nothing to do with this, Bolton.”
“He has everything to do with this, Theo,” he said. “Because we both know what he’ll do once I cut him loose. Now take a seat.” He gestured to the tray of cigars. “Help yourself. I don’t mind in the least.”
I took a seat on the couch across from my butler and stared at Bolton.
He stared back, lounging comfortably like the bomb didn’t bother him at all. “When I think of revenge, I only think of torture and death. But you have a very different approach to it.”
I assumed he meant Astrid, but I wasn’t sure if he was fishing.
His stare continued to burn into my face, growing hotter and hotter.
I wasn’t sure if he knew where I’d just been. What I’d just been doing. That my dick smelled like her because I hadn’t showered.
His stare continued, explosive like the surface of the sun, his rage so intense he seemed to forget words.
Yep. He definitely knew.
“I’d kill you right here, right now, if I could. Luck is on your side, Theo. But I have another idea—a compromise.”
He wanted to compromise with the man fucking his wife?
“You want to know who put that hit on Killian? I’ll give you the contract details. But this man is a cut above the rest. If you intend to take him down with your usual means, you’ll be unsuccessful. So, not only will I give you his information, I’ll help you put him in the ground. But I want something in return.”
To stay away from Astrid.
“You’re going to hurt my wife.”
My heart gave a sudden clench.
“There will be no explanation. You’ll just dump her and ghost her. You got your revenge and poisoned my fucking soul. It’s done.”
“It was never about revenge?—”
“Take the offer.” He grabbed his gun and aimed it at my butler. “Or I shoot Grandpa in the head.”
My butler stiffened, his breaths turning anxious.
“Bolton—”
He cocked the gun. “Take the deal, or he dies.”
My brother was my other half, and to never reclaim his body was something I couldn’t live with. I didn’t want to hurt Astrid, but I didn’t want to betray my own family and my butler for a woman I could never have. And even if I did have her, it wouldn’t last. It wouldn’t last because I was irrevocably broken and had nothing to offer. “Fine.”
“Good.” He set the gun next to the ashtray. “I want this done first thing tomorrow. She will know nothing of this conversation.”
“Even with me out of the way, she won’t go back to you.”
“I disagree.” He helped himself to a glass of scotch he poured for himself.
“If you didn’t want your wife fucking other people, then you shouldn’t have asked to fuck other people.”
He took another drink and ignored me.
“I didn’t do it out of revenge. I did it because I wanted to. Because Astrid is a beautiful woman—who deserves better than you.”
“If she deserves better than me, then she deserves better than you.”
I couldn’t disagree with that.
“Dump her, Theo.” He got to his feet and stuffed his gun into the back of his jeans. “And I’ll keep my word to you.”
“What happened to your plan to kill me?”
He stared down at me for a second. “My wife is a smart woman. If you drop dead, she’ll know it was me. And then she really will leave. But if you hurt her, her confidence will be crushed, and she’ll run right back into my arms—where she belongs.”
Sickness entered my chest, picturing her with him again now that she’d been mine, even if it was only for a couple of hours.
“Once the job is done, we’ll get to work.” He grabbed his scotch and finished it off before he moved toward me. “I’m a man of my word, Theo. And you better be a man of yours—otherwise, your other brother will suffer the consequences.”